Samadhi Kamal #7
Available in:
Read in Original Hindi (मूल हिन्दी)
Questions in this Discourse
Osho, please let me take my question back!
Asking is easy; withdrawing a question is a good thing.
Osho, I too have begun to feel that it is not valuable.
Yes, that is valuable—that’s exactly the point; that’s why I am saying it. If this begins to be felt, we move from mere curiosity to the longing for liberation. That is what I was explaining: the day you feel that all questions are futile, the true question of value has arisen. As long as your questions seem very valuable, you have not yet understood. They seem valuable because there is only a curiosity to know them.
What will you do by knowing? Ask yourself: even if I come to know this, then what? Only that question has value whose knowing will make a difference in you.
I was staying in a village. Two elderly gentlemen came to me. They said, “We have a thirty-year-old dispute—please settle it.” I asked, “What is the dispute?” Both were decent men. One was a Jain, one a Brahmin. They said, “We are neighbors and childhood friends, and our quarrel is whether God created the world or not. I say”—the Brahmin said—“that God created it, and he says God did not create it, it is beginningless. Thirty years we have been knocking our heads over this. We have asked everyone who has come to the village, and no solution is found. So we have come to you.”
I said, “If you haven’t found a solution in so many days, how will you find it with me? And if a solution were possible, you would have found it by now. I do not give answers to your questions; I simply ask you one more question.” I asked the Brahmin, “If God did create the world, then what will you do?”
He said, “What will I do? I will at least have found out the truth.”
I said, “That has no value. A truth that does not create a revolution within you has no value. Knowing such a truth has no value. Truth has value only when it brings a revolution within. You have wasted thirty years on a ‘truth’ which, even if you knew it, would bring no change in you. If, on the other hand, knowing that ‘God created the world’ makes any difference in you, then please get busy bringing about that difference. Get busy bringing about that difference.”
And to the other I said, “What would it mean to you to know that God did not create the world? What will you do then? What will come of it? And if knowing that will lead you to do something, then assume that God did not create the world—and begin that work. You have wasted thirty years in idle talk.”
All the pandits and philosophers waste life in idle prattle. One who knows must think, “What nonsense people are entangled in! How childish the pundits seem, how juvenile their intellects!” A precious opportunity in life, in which something real could happen—what do we ask, what do we think about? Things that do not concern us.
So the day a question of yours starts to look futile to you, know that you are close to the answer. The question itself has no answer, but when the question starts to look futile, the birth of the answer begins within you.
These are some questions. It would have been good if today you had asked questions useful to your practice—questions about elements of sadhana, about the path you are contemplating now and might one day resolve to walk. A wish is a good sign; at least it is a beginning, and can become a resolve. If you had asked about that, it would have been useful and meaningful for you. But if there are no such questions… One or two here do concern sadhana.
One is this: It is asked that I emphasize darshan—direct seeing—and grant no value to thought, consider it unnecessary. Is thought then useless? Has it no use in life, no power?
Thought indeed has great power. I call it “useless” only in the sense that it is not capable of knowing truth. When I have termed thought “useless,” it is not to deny its own utility, but to point to its incapacity to know truth. Truth is not available through thought; hence, in that sense, thought is useless. I have not said thought has no meaningfulness at all. If I said thought has no meaningfulness, what would I be doing with you right now? I am speaking with you through thought, are we not engaging thought here for three days?
Thought has one true usefulness: to show you where it is capable, and where it is incapable. If a person follows thought rightly, it will become clear that as far as the world of matter—the world of the “other”—extends, thought is capable of researching. Where the Self is concerned, not thought but seeing—darshan—is the ally.
From thought, science is born. Hence science will never be able to know the soul; being born of thought, whatever it knows will be not-self. However deep it goes, it will not pass beyond the layers of the not-self. Thought does not go beyond the not-self—for how can the knower, which itself uses thought, be known by thought?
This is my hand. With this hand I can grasp all the objects in the world; this hand cannot grasp itself. With a pair of tongs I can pick up anything; I cannot pick up the tongs with the same tongs. The tongs are capable of grasping everything else, but not themselves.
Thought is a medium of human consciousness. Through it you can understand and grasp the whole world. There is one place where it is incapable—grasping oneself—because it drops behind there. Thought is your power; therefore it cannot grasp you, though it can grasp everything else. If you want to grasp yourself, then when thought falls to zero and the process of seizing the other ceases, that which was behind thought—the one to whom the thought belonged—is revealed. When thought drops, the original source and fountainhead of thought comes into your grasp.
So science is thought; religion is not thought.
As I said in the morning, all thoughts are borrowed. Even borrowed thoughts have their use. In science, their use is total. What a scientist thinks today, the next scientist will think further tomorrow. So science is a tradition; religion is not a tradition. Will you think further than where Mahavira thought? In science, where Newton ended, Einstein began; where Einstein ended, another begins. Do you imagine that where Mahavira ended, you will begin? In religion, you must begin where Mahavira began. In science, you begin where the previous scientist ended. Therefore science has tradition; religion has no tradition. Tradition means: we stand on the shoulders of the one before us. You cannot stand on Mahavira’s shoulders.
Here is my difficulty: when I oppose “tradition,” people think I am being irreverent. Tradition would mean: start from beyond Mahavira. If you must start where Mahavira started, then where is tradition? That was Mahavira’s personal sadhana; yours too will be your personal sadhana.
Science is not personal sadhana; it is collective effort. Religion is individual sadhana. Therefore borrowed, other people’s thoughts are of use in science—utterly useless in knowing oneself.
Thought is power; that is science. But it is merely a power; it is not the source and origin of power. The one of whom it is a power stands behind. Whether or not there is thought, you are. Whether thought is there or not there, you are. Your being does not depend on the presence or absence of thought. Yes, the presence of thought certainly depends on your being.
Understand this difference! Your being does not depend on thought; the existence of thought depends on your being. You cannot be found through thought; you will have to be found through thoughtlessness.
Therefore all yoga is the relinquishing of thought; all yoga is the immersion of thought.
Meditation, samadhi, are freedom from thought, thought-emptiness.
A difficulty arises in the mind: when I keep emphasizing the dissolution, the freedom, the emptiness of thought, it seems to you that if you become thought-free and lose your intellect, you will be in great trouble: How will anything be done when there is no thought?
You do not know that when thought falls to zero, what remains is called discernment—vivek. From discernment, mistakes never occur; mistakes occur through thought, because thought gropes.
A blind man has a stick; with it he gropes, finds the door, and goes out. If we treat his eyes, he may ask, “Once my eyes are healed, will I use the stick or not?” We will tell him, “The stick is utterly useless. When the eyes are cured, the stick is useless.” He will say, “That is very troublesome! Without the stick, how will I find the door?” True, his life’s experience is: he finds doors by groping with the stick. We say the stick is useless; he says, “You are talking nonsense—I’ll crash into the wall.”
Right now we are blind people, groping our way through life with the stick of thought. And what ‘path’ do we make! Day and night we are colliding with each other’s paths—falling over one another—no paths are being made. A path is that which takes you somewhere. We begin life and almost die on the same crossroads. Does any path get found? Movement within a jostling crowd is not a path. We shove each other; there is a little motion, so it feels as if we are moving—but we get nowhere.
Thought somehow gets life across, as a blind man somehow gets across by groping. When thought becomes quiet, discernment awakens. When thought becomes zero, wisdom—prajna—awakens: inner seeing, insight. And with that eye, what is wholesome is seen, what is unwholesome is seen. One does not need to think what should or should not be done. It is seen. There are no options, no alternatives. Only one is seen.
A blind person standing here wonders: perhaps the door is to the left, or to the right, or in front. Before groping, he will choose a hypothesis—“Let me try left; if not, I’ll try right.” A blind man has many alternatives; he must pick one by imagination and probe.
Science proceeds by hypothesis. You imagine, “Let’s look this way; perhaps we’ll find it.” If found, it becomes a theory; if not, you try another way.
Insight means eyes are present. One with eyes does not stand here wondering—“Where might the door be? Maybe here, maybe there?” Where the door is, he sees it.
When thought becomes quiet and its restlessness—because thought is a kind of anxiety, a tension-wave—settles, then the discernment that had been leaning on the stick of thought stands alone. When all tensions, all waves subside to zero, you begin to see. What is right is seen. And when truth is seen, to go against it becomes impossible. When the door is visible, is it possible to walk into the wall? When the door is seen clearly and unambiguously by your inner vision, it becomes hard to go here or there.
When prajna awakens, conduct becomes right and pure by itself. By the loss, by the falling to zero, of thought, you lose nothing—you gain.
But losing thought through sadhana is one thing; the mere absence of thought is another. A dull mind, a sluggish mind, seems to have “no thought.” Not so; there too thought is present—often more so. Such a mind has many thoughts—disconnected, incoherent, without harmony. He is called “unthinking” not because he has fewer thoughts, but because he lacks discernment. And discernment is lacking precisely because there are too many thoughts. In proportion as thought decreases, discernment increases. The day thought is wholly zero, full discernment awakens. Then, like light, your path is illumined. You do not grope; you see. The attainment of that inner vision is not a loss; it is a gain.
So have no hesitation in losing thought. It is like the blind man’s stick. Do not fear that when the eyes open, what will we do with the stick? It has many uses—you can light the hearth with it, or put it to some other use.
One more question:
What is the relationship between self-dharma and national-dharma?
From the standpoint of sadhana, none. From the standpoint of the result, very much.
This is worth understanding. When a person practices religion, there is no relation to anyone else. If I have to practice religion, I must practice utterly alone. You will not be my companions or helpers. Neither society nor nation will be my companions or helpers. That journey is utterly solitary. Two people cannot enter meditation together, nor samadhi together. It is a completely solitary path inward. There is no “together” there. Therefore there is no society there; there is no such thing as collective sadhana. Sadhana is always individual.
So the practice of religion is personal, because in sadhana one must know oneself, and in knowing oneself, what companion or helper is needed? No companion, no helper. The path is one’s own and must be traversed alone—an utterly solitary way.
The other day we heard a song: “If none answers your call, then go alone.” In truth, whom are you calling there? You will have to go alone; there is no room for calling. One must walk alone—utterly solitary.
So the practice of religion is solitary, alone, of the self. But the fruit of sadhana is social. The soul is individual; conduct is not. Conduct begins where I relate to the other. My relations with people, my behavior with people—that is my conduct. Conduct is social; the soul is individual.
When self-knowledge happens, your entire conduct changes. In ignorance, conduct is of one kind; in knowledge, it is of another. That conduct builds culture; it builds society and nation. Therefore, directly religion has no relation to nation or society, to any time or place. But indirectly, through conduct—when the soul is refined—conduct becomes national wealth, social wealth.
Thus the practice of religion is eternal and individual; the fruit born of it is temporal and social. The seeker must go into solitude; the siddha must return to society. Mahavira went to the forest to practice; once accomplished, why didn’t he remain there? Muhammad withdrew to the mountain; once accomplished, why didn’t he stay there? When the soul is attained, the fragrance and light that spread all around are collective; the sharing of bliss is inevitable. The attainment of bliss is personal; its sharing is collective. Its sharing is collective.
So with Mahavira, there is his eternal dharma—what he realized in his personal sadhana—and there is his worldly dharma of conduct, which pervaded around him.
Therefore anyone who says “social service is religion” is wrong—from the standpoint of sadhana, completely wrong. If someone teaches that sadhana means “serve society,” it is utterly false. To call social service religious sadhana is wrong—because sadhana is personal; what has it to do with social service, or national service, or national movements? But yes: if inner peace is attained personally, then that person’s life will certainly be transformed into service.
Service does not lead to religion; religion leads to service. The one who takes social service to be religion misunderstands; the one who understands that religion itself flowers as service understands rightly. Service is not religion; religion is certainly service. This distinction is fundamental.
If you decide to do social service—uplift the “Harijan,” redistribute land, do this and that—and you think self-realization will result, you are mistaken. Self-realization will not come from that. You may become a good and popular person; you will taste a subtle pleasure of ego—and nothing more. You will enjoy the pleasure of being “a servant,” but you will not taste the joy of service. The pleasure of the role of “servant” is one thing; the joy of service is entirely another.
But if you enter religious practice, which is utterly personal, then a day will come when that sadhana will transform your life into service. Now life is self-interest; then life will be service. In self-ignorance, life is self-centered; whatever you do, some form of self-interest is present. In self-knowledge, life is service; whatever you do, self-interest cannot remain.
For me, religion is fundamental; its result will surely come. Consider this: all those in the past who realized religion—how curious that they never said “social service is religion!” Have you ever thought about that? Only in the last hundred or hundred-fifty years has this idea slowly arisen that social service is religion. Rabindranath sang, “Where are you seeking God? He is there where the farmer tills the soil and the laborer breaks stones.”
It sounds good; it is a beautiful poem. But that is a social—social reform—movement; it has nothing to do with religion.
God is neither where the shopkeeper minds his shop, nor where the capitalist exploits, nor where the laborer breaks stones. And if He is, then He is in all three. That emphasis is social reform; it is not our concern here. In the last century, reform movements have been drowning religion and consuming it—only because the name and prestige of religion are being exploited for social reform. The intention is not bad, but better to keep it separate. Social reform is one thing—pleasant, good, necessary. Religion is entirely different. And I hold that only one established in religion can truly become social—because only in religion does the ego that isolates us break. Egolessness is service; egolessness is love; egolessness is what we wish to see in persons. Ego is the root of all evil; it poisons life.
So there is no harm even if we do not speak of national-dharma or social-dharma. If only religion is fulfilled, the rest will happen by itself; it is a natural consequence. If religion is refined, all else is refined by itself; there is nothing greater to refine. Slogans—Harijan uplift, rescue of prostitutes, widows’ remarriage, educating poor children—these are not bad; they are all good. But when we insist “this is religion,” we go wrong. These are worldly dharmas—lok-dharma. They should be there; very good if they are. But they are not religion; they have nothing to do with religion.
Religion is the sadhana of samadhi; it is inner entry. It is an entirely different world, a different path within the individual. When it happens, that person’s life becomes a vehicle for the dissolution of all that is unwholesome in the world—because the unwholesome has dissolved within. By becoming religious, for the first time a person becomes social—indeed, global—one with the whole, because the ego, the “I,” has broken and fallen away.
I think you have understood me. Many questions remain—many written questions lie here, many unwritten remain in your minds. If we meet again, we can discuss them. Blessed will be those whose questions disappear without being asked—who, within, break and become questionless. If, in the meantime, there is a little movement in the sadhana we have discussed, then surely the questions are on their way to dissolving by themselves.
What will you do by knowing? Ask yourself: even if I come to know this, then what? Only that question has value whose knowing will make a difference in you.
I was staying in a village. Two elderly gentlemen came to me. They said, “We have a thirty-year-old dispute—please settle it.” I asked, “What is the dispute?” Both were decent men. One was a Jain, one a Brahmin. They said, “We are neighbors and childhood friends, and our quarrel is whether God created the world or not. I say”—the Brahmin said—“that God created it, and he says God did not create it, it is beginningless. Thirty years we have been knocking our heads over this. We have asked everyone who has come to the village, and no solution is found. So we have come to you.”
I said, “If you haven’t found a solution in so many days, how will you find it with me? And if a solution were possible, you would have found it by now. I do not give answers to your questions; I simply ask you one more question.” I asked the Brahmin, “If God did create the world, then what will you do?”
He said, “What will I do? I will at least have found out the truth.”
I said, “That has no value. A truth that does not create a revolution within you has no value. Knowing such a truth has no value. Truth has value only when it brings a revolution within. You have wasted thirty years on a ‘truth’ which, even if you knew it, would bring no change in you. If, on the other hand, knowing that ‘God created the world’ makes any difference in you, then please get busy bringing about that difference. Get busy bringing about that difference.”
And to the other I said, “What would it mean to you to know that God did not create the world? What will you do then? What will come of it? And if knowing that will lead you to do something, then assume that God did not create the world—and begin that work. You have wasted thirty years in idle talk.”
All the pandits and philosophers waste life in idle prattle. One who knows must think, “What nonsense people are entangled in! How childish the pundits seem, how juvenile their intellects!” A precious opportunity in life, in which something real could happen—what do we ask, what do we think about? Things that do not concern us.
So the day a question of yours starts to look futile to you, know that you are close to the answer. The question itself has no answer, but when the question starts to look futile, the birth of the answer begins within you.
These are some questions. It would have been good if today you had asked questions useful to your practice—questions about elements of sadhana, about the path you are contemplating now and might one day resolve to walk. A wish is a good sign; at least it is a beginning, and can become a resolve. If you had asked about that, it would have been useful and meaningful for you. But if there are no such questions… One or two here do concern sadhana.
One is this: It is asked that I emphasize darshan—direct seeing—and grant no value to thought, consider it unnecessary. Is thought then useless? Has it no use in life, no power?
Thought indeed has great power. I call it “useless” only in the sense that it is not capable of knowing truth. When I have termed thought “useless,” it is not to deny its own utility, but to point to its incapacity to know truth. Truth is not available through thought; hence, in that sense, thought is useless. I have not said thought has no meaningfulness at all. If I said thought has no meaningfulness, what would I be doing with you right now? I am speaking with you through thought, are we not engaging thought here for three days?
Thought has one true usefulness: to show you where it is capable, and where it is incapable. If a person follows thought rightly, it will become clear that as far as the world of matter—the world of the “other”—extends, thought is capable of researching. Where the Self is concerned, not thought but seeing—darshan—is the ally.
From thought, science is born. Hence science will never be able to know the soul; being born of thought, whatever it knows will be not-self. However deep it goes, it will not pass beyond the layers of the not-self. Thought does not go beyond the not-self—for how can the knower, which itself uses thought, be known by thought?
This is my hand. With this hand I can grasp all the objects in the world; this hand cannot grasp itself. With a pair of tongs I can pick up anything; I cannot pick up the tongs with the same tongs. The tongs are capable of grasping everything else, but not themselves.
Thought is a medium of human consciousness. Through it you can understand and grasp the whole world. There is one place where it is incapable—grasping oneself—because it drops behind there. Thought is your power; therefore it cannot grasp you, though it can grasp everything else. If you want to grasp yourself, then when thought falls to zero and the process of seizing the other ceases, that which was behind thought—the one to whom the thought belonged—is revealed. When thought drops, the original source and fountainhead of thought comes into your grasp.
So science is thought; religion is not thought.
As I said in the morning, all thoughts are borrowed. Even borrowed thoughts have their use. In science, their use is total. What a scientist thinks today, the next scientist will think further tomorrow. So science is a tradition; religion is not a tradition. Will you think further than where Mahavira thought? In science, where Newton ended, Einstein began; where Einstein ended, another begins. Do you imagine that where Mahavira ended, you will begin? In religion, you must begin where Mahavira began. In science, you begin where the previous scientist ended. Therefore science has tradition; religion has no tradition. Tradition means: we stand on the shoulders of the one before us. You cannot stand on Mahavira’s shoulders.
Here is my difficulty: when I oppose “tradition,” people think I am being irreverent. Tradition would mean: start from beyond Mahavira. If you must start where Mahavira started, then where is tradition? That was Mahavira’s personal sadhana; yours too will be your personal sadhana.
Science is not personal sadhana; it is collective effort. Religion is individual sadhana. Therefore borrowed, other people’s thoughts are of use in science—utterly useless in knowing oneself.
Thought is power; that is science. But it is merely a power; it is not the source and origin of power. The one of whom it is a power stands behind. Whether or not there is thought, you are. Whether thought is there or not there, you are. Your being does not depend on the presence or absence of thought. Yes, the presence of thought certainly depends on your being.
Understand this difference! Your being does not depend on thought; the existence of thought depends on your being. You cannot be found through thought; you will have to be found through thoughtlessness.
Therefore all yoga is the relinquishing of thought; all yoga is the immersion of thought.
Meditation, samadhi, are freedom from thought, thought-emptiness.
A difficulty arises in the mind: when I keep emphasizing the dissolution, the freedom, the emptiness of thought, it seems to you that if you become thought-free and lose your intellect, you will be in great trouble: How will anything be done when there is no thought?
You do not know that when thought falls to zero, what remains is called discernment—vivek. From discernment, mistakes never occur; mistakes occur through thought, because thought gropes.
A blind man has a stick; with it he gropes, finds the door, and goes out. If we treat his eyes, he may ask, “Once my eyes are healed, will I use the stick or not?” We will tell him, “The stick is utterly useless. When the eyes are cured, the stick is useless.” He will say, “That is very troublesome! Without the stick, how will I find the door?” True, his life’s experience is: he finds doors by groping with the stick. We say the stick is useless; he says, “You are talking nonsense—I’ll crash into the wall.”
Right now we are blind people, groping our way through life with the stick of thought. And what ‘path’ do we make! Day and night we are colliding with each other’s paths—falling over one another—no paths are being made. A path is that which takes you somewhere. We begin life and almost die on the same crossroads. Does any path get found? Movement within a jostling crowd is not a path. We shove each other; there is a little motion, so it feels as if we are moving—but we get nowhere.
Thought somehow gets life across, as a blind man somehow gets across by groping. When thought becomes quiet, discernment awakens. When thought becomes zero, wisdom—prajna—awakens: inner seeing, insight. And with that eye, what is wholesome is seen, what is unwholesome is seen. One does not need to think what should or should not be done. It is seen. There are no options, no alternatives. Only one is seen.
A blind person standing here wonders: perhaps the door is to the left, or to the right, or in front. Before groping, he will choose a hypothesis—“Let me try left; if not, I’ll try right.” A blind man has many alternatives; he must pick one by imagination and probe.
Science proceeds by hypothesis. You imagine, “Let’s look this way; perhaps we’ll find it.” If found, it becomes a theory; if not, you try another way.
Insight means eyes are present. One with eyes does not stand here wondering—“Where might the door be? Maybe here, maybe there?” Where the door is, he sees it.
When thought becomes quiet and its restlessness—because thought is a kind of anxiety, a tension-wave—settles, then the discernment that had been leaning on the stick of thought stands alone. When all tensions, all waves subside to zero, you begin to see. What is right is seen. And when truth is seen, to go against it becomes impossible. When the door is visible, is it possible to walk into the wall? When the door is seen clearly and unambiguously by your inner vision, it becomes hard to go here or there.
When prajna awakens, conduct becomes right and pure by itself. By the loss, by the falling to zero, of thought, you lose nothing—you gain.
But losing thought through sadhana is one thing; the mere absence of thought is another. A dull mind, a sluggish mind, seems to have “no thought.” Not so; there too thought is present—often more so. Such a mind has many thoughts—disconnected, incoherent, without harmony. He is called “unthinking” not because he has fewer thoughts, but because he lacks discernment. And discernment is lacking precisely because there are too many thoughts. In proportion as thought decreases, discernment increases. The day thought is wholly zero, full discernment awakens. Then, like light, your path is illumined. You do not grope; you see. The attainment of that inner vision is not a loss; it is a gain.
So have no hesitation in losing thought. It is like the blind man’s stick. Do not fear that when the eyes open, what will we do with the stick? It has many uses—you can light the hearth with it, or put it to some other use.
One more question:
What is the relationship between self-dharma and national-dharma?
From the standpoint of sadhana, none. From the standpoint of the result, very much.
This is worth understanding. When a person practices religion, there is no relation to anyone else. If I have to practice religion, I must practice utterly alone. You will not be my companions or helpers. Neither society nor nation will be my companions or helpers. That journey is utterly solitary. Two people cannot enter meditation together, nor samadhi together. It is a completely solitary path inward. There is no “together” there. Therefore there is no society there; there is no such thing as collective sadhana. Sadhana is always individual.
So the practice of religion is personal, because in sadhana one must know oneself, and in knowing oneself, what companion or helper is needed? No companion, no helper. The path is one’s own and must be traversed alone—an utterly solitary way.
The other day we heard a song: “If none answers your call, then go alone.” In truth, whom are you calling there? You will have to go alone; there is no room for calling. One must walk alone—utterly solitary.
So the practice of religion is solitary, alone, of the self. But the fruit of sadhana is social. The soul is individual; conduct is not. Conduct begins where I relate to the other. My relations with people, my behavior with people—that is my conduct. Conduct is social; the soul is individual.
When self-knowledge happens, your entire conduct changes. In ignorance, conduct is of one kind; in knowledge, it is of another. That conduct builds culture; it builds society and nation. Therefore, directly religion has no relation to nation or society, to any time or place. But indirectly, through conduct—when the soul is refined—conduct becomes national wealth, social wealth.
Thus the practice of religion is eternal and individual; the fruit born of it is temporal and social. The seeker must go into solitude; the siddha must return to society. Mahavira went to the forest to practice; once accomplished, why didn’t he remain there? Muhammad withdrew to the mountain; once accomplished, why didn’t he stay there? When the soul is attained, the fragrance and light that spread all around are collective; the sharing of bliss is inevitable. The attainment of bliss is personal; its sharing is collective. Its sharing is collective.
So with Mahavira, there is his eternal dharma—what he realized in his personal sadhana—and there is his worldly dharma of conduct, which pervaded around him.
Therefore anyone who says “social service is religion” is wrong—from the standpoint of sadhana, completely wrong. If someone teaches that sadhana means “serve society,” it is utterly false. To call social service religious sadhana is wrong—because sadhana is personal; what has it to do with social service, or national service, or national movements? But yes: if inner peace is attained personally, then that person’s life will certainly be transformed into service.
Service does not lead to religion; religion leads to service. The one who takes social service to be religion misunderstands; the one who understands that religion itself flowers as service understands rightly. Service is not religion; religion is certainly service. This distinction is fundamental.
If you decide to do social service—uplift the “Harijan,” redistribute land, do this and that—and you think self-realization will result, you are mistaken. Self-realization will not come from that. You may become a good and popular person; you will taste a subtle pleasure of ego—and nothing more. You will enjoy the pleasure of being “a servant,” but you will not taste the joy of service. The pleasure of the role of “servant” is one thing; the joy of service is entirely another.
But if you enter religious practice, which is utterly personal, then a day will come when that sadhana will transform your life into service. Now life is self-interest; then life will be service. In self-ignorance, life is self-centered; whatever you do, some form of self-interest is present. In self-knowledge, life is service; whatever you do, self-interest cannot remain.
For me, religion is fundamental; its result will surely come. Consider this: all those in the past who realized religion—how curious that they never said “social service is religion!” Have you ever thought about that? Only in the last hundred or hundred-fifty years has this idea slowly arisen that social service is religion. Rabindranath sang, “Where are you seeking God? He is there where the farmer tills the soil and the laborer breaks stones.”
It sounds good; it is a beautiful poem. But that is a social—social reform—movement; it has nothing to do with religion.
God is neither where the shopkeeper minds his shop, nor where the capitalist exploits, nor where the laborer breaks stones. And if He is, then He is in all three. That emphasis is social reform; it is not our concern here. In the last century, reform movements have been drowning religion and consuming it—only because the name and prestige of religion are being exploited for social reform. The intention is not bad, but better to keep it separate. Social reform is one thing—pleasant, good, necessary. Religion is entirely different. And I hold that only one established in religion can truly become social—because only in religion does the ego that isolates us break. Egolessness is service; egolessness is love; egolessness is what we wish to see in persons. Ego is the root of all evil; it poisons life.
So there is no harm even if we do not speak of national-dharma or social-dharma. If only religion is fulfilled, the rest will happen by itself; it is a natural consequence. If religion is refined, all else is refined by itself; there is nothing greater to refine. Slogans—Harijan uplift, rescue of prostitutes, widows’ remarriage, educating poor children—these are not bad; they are all good. But when we insist “this is religion,” we go wrong. These are worldly dharmas—lok-dharma. They should be there; very good if they are. But they are not religion; they have nothing to do with religion.
Religion is the sadhana of samadhi; it is inner entry. It is an entirely different world, a different path within the individual. When it happens, that person’s life becomes a vehicle for the dissolution of all that is unwholesome in the world—because the unwholesome has dissolved within. By becoming religious, for the first time a person becomes social—indeed, global—one with the whole, because the ego, the “I,” has broken and fallen away.
I think you have understood me. Many questions remain—many written questions lie here, many unwritten remain in your minds. If we meet again, we can discuss them. Blessed will be those whose questions disappear without being asked—who, within, break and become questionless. If, in the meantime, there is a little movement in the sadhana we have discussed, then surely the questions are on their way to dissolving by themselves.
Osho's Commentary
I shed some light on a few aspects for the preparatory ground of sadhana; I discussed them with you. I pointed out two things: I told you how to do sadhana, and I told you how the ground for sadhana is prepared. Even if the ground is known and the method is known, sadhana still does not begin. You may know what is to be done and you may know how it is to be done—yet doing does not begin. You may understand the preparation, you may understand the method; you may know that the soil must be cleared in such a way and the seeds must be sown in such a way; even so, it does not mean you will begin gardening. For gardening, besides these two, something more is needed. So let me throw light on a few such elements, without which the knowledge of gardening remains mere knowledge and of no use.
First of all, the element that can actually take you into sadhana is sankalpa—resolve. The first element is sankalpa.
Sadhana is not something that happens because you understood it once, nor is it something that happens when you feel like it in some idle moment. It is a continuous sankalpa.
Even to obtain the most petty things of life, we need resolve. We must apply ourselves to them. For Self-realization, for the attainment of Truth, we often have wishes—but we never make a sankalpa. There is a difference between desire and sankalpa—between desire and will. To desire that the Atman be attained is one thing; to resolve that I shall attain the Atman is quite another. Anyone can desire; not everyone makes a sankalpa.
So those who only desire may have the illusion that they wanted to attain the Self, but it does not come. To them I would say: you have desired; you have not yet resolved. Sankalpa means that, with discrimination, you take an inner decision—that now you will order your life from this center, that you must move in one direction. This resolve to move—“I shall be in motion”—the very moment this sankalpa, this inner vow, is made, you will feel many forces awaken within you, forces that never stir by mere desire. Whenever a desire ripens into sankalpa, you experience certain sleeping energies within you awakening; they become your allies. A mere desire is only a disturbance of the mind; it never becomes an active force.
So if you truly wish to enter the world of sadhana, understand the difference between desire and sankalpa. Do not stop at desire—turn toward sankalpa. Take this decision before your inner witness—not before anyone else—what is it that I truly want? Is it really my longing that the Atman be attained? Is it truly my sankalpa to know the Truth? Or is it just my curiosity?
The day before yesterday I said: this is the difference between curiosity, the curious, and the mumukshu. Curiosity means: we want to know what this is; the moment that ends, we want to know the next thing—what that is; then a third, and so on.
Now, in your questions, there is little mumuksha and plenty of curiosity. You want to know what is what. Someone asks: who is the creator of the world? Someone asks: what is prarabdha? Someone asks: what is purushartha? Someone asks: why is there attraction between man and woman? Someone asks something else. One person has asked: is it possible that we attain knowledge and still commit sin and remain untouched by sin? Could it be that a knower commits adultery and yet no sin attaches?
Such things are fine as curiosities—the mind does not know many things and wants to ask. But there is no mumuksha in them. They do not make you a mumukshu. Mumuksha means something very different. It does not mean we want to know something; it means we want to be something. It is not that there is an itch in the head that we want to scratch and be done with. It means there is a crisis upon our life, and we want to transform this crisis. Curiosity is a mere inquisitiveness—we ask a few questions. Children ask: where is the sky? From where did the moon come? Our curiosities are of the same order. We do not grow much beyond children. Age grows, but the child within does not die. We ask: how might the earth have been formed? On what does it rest? Children ask; we ask; and we go on asking.
But until mumuksha is born within you, your inner child does not end. Curiosity is childhood; mumuksha—mumukshutva—is maturity. That is when, for the first time, you become an adult. When you are no longer very eager to know, but are eager to be. Knowing is only desire; being demands sankalpa.
So, before you begin sadhana—before you enter a life of sadhana—become clear within: are these merely curiosities? If they are curiosities, it is better to enter the scriptures than to enter sadhana. If they are curiosities, better to sit in a library and study books related to yoga than to enter yoga.
Understand this as well: Western philosophy is curiosity; Eastern darshan is not curiosity. Hence Western philosophy and Eastern philosophy are as far apart as earth and sky—there is no relation. Therefore the ancillary limb of Western philosophy is argument and logic; the ancillary limb of Eastern darshan is not argument and logic—it is yoga and sadhana. Yoga did not develop alongside Western philosophy; there is no Western philosopher who is a yogi. And there is no Eastern darshanik who is not a yogi.
Understand this well. What we are discussing here is not philosophy. Nor what Mahavira, Buddha, Patanjali, Krishna, or Shankara discussed is philosophy. It is ignorance on our part that we call it Indian philosophy. It is not philosophy at all. It is sadhana. It is not curiosity. It is an effort to transform ourselves—to become something else. What we are is unworthy; we want to become something else. It is a deep sankalpa—an entire inner being gathers itself to resolve: as I am, I am futile, and I must become meaningful. Then curiosity becomes ancillary; mumuksha is primary, curiosity is secondary—meaning curiosity serves sadhana. It has no value by itself.
So if it is curiosity, it is one matter. Then it is an intellectual exercise that you can go on doing your whole life—with no result. But if it is mumuksha—if it is your longing that life as you find it is futile, meaningless, and that you must discover meaning—then something else begins.
There was a fakir. He went out early in the morning to bathe. Someone on the path asked: does God exist? He was going to bathe; the man asked on the way, “Is there God?” The fakir said, Do you want to know, or do you want to hear? Had he asked you, you too would have said, We want to know. He also said, We want to know. The fakir laughed and said, If you want to know, then come with me. Let us bathe; you also bathe. Then we will understand; then we will make you know—we will tell you.
They both entered the river. When they went in, and the questioner dipped into the water, the fakir pressed his neck under the water. The man began to struggle—his neck held down, the fakir heavy and strong. He kept pressing, and the curious one had no chance to get free. His life-breath began to flutter, his breathing must have started to fail, every pore of his body must have trembled. When he was just about to lose his breath, on the verge of death, only then did the fakir release him. He came rushing out, aghast—his eyes blood-red, his hands and feet trembling. He was stunned: I had asked to know God, and he almost made me face death! He said to the fakir, What are you doing? Are you in your senses or mad?
The fakir said, I am in my senses, and I am answering what you asked. Tell me this: when I held your neck under the water, what happened to you?
He said, Is that even a question? My very life was frantic to get out. Then I even forgot that I had to get out; there remained only one blind thirst—that somehow a breath of air be had.
The fakir said, Has your longing to attain God reached such a state? That such a torment is upon you for the world—that if He is not found, I will break, I will be finished, all will end? Then it is no longer curiosity; then it is thirst. And if there is thirst, sankalpa will be born. The fakir asked him, While under water, were you making a normal desire to get out—or was it a sankalpa?
He said, Desire? It was sankalpa! The resolve of my whole being to get out. I was pouring my total strength into getting out.
With such sankalpa—such as you must make if someone holds you under water—with such sankalpa does one enter the life of sadhana.
When a seed sprouts, with how much sankalpa must it be sprouting? When it breaks the crust of earth, and when it splits its shell and the sprout emerges—how much sankalpa, how much will is needed? Even more sankalpa is needed when a person breaks the shell of futility and enters a meaningful life. Gathering all his strength, when he makes a sankalpa, he gains entry.
So I say to you: sadhana will bear fruit—if there is no mere desire, but sankalpa. If there is no curiosity, but mumuksha. The first condition is sankalpa. This is the primary condition; without it, nothing begins. Without it, nothing begins. This inner vow, within your life, within your inner being, is essential: I am bound by sankalpa.
The night Buddha attained Buddhahood… For seven years he had wandered. He wandered to who knows where, met who knows whom, practiced who knows which sadhanas. Seven years he wandered; he was exhausted, worn out. The night he attained Buddhahood, it came through a great sankalpa. And then he saw that for seven years there had been desire; sankalpa arose for the first time that evening. He went down to bathe; his body so emaciated from countless fasts that when he tried to climb up the riverbank, his hands and feet trembled; he felt no strength in his hands to grasp the grass and climb. He held on to a hanging root and steadied himself. For the first time he felt: I have become so weak that if I cannot cross this river, how will I cross the ocean of existence? So weak that if I cannot climb this bank, how will I ascend the bank of life?
When he rose and felt some strength, he came out and decided: tonight is the last night. By morning I will drop this pursuit of the Self and Truth—but let this whole night be only this one thought. He sat beneath the tree that later became the Bodhi tree and made a sankalpa: I shall not rise from here; either I will find the Truth, or I will end. And he was amazed—no sooner did this sankalpa become profound than he saw that the wheel of thought which had been revolving endlessly began dissolving and disappearing. The morning star arose; it was about to set—and he attained Buddhahood. What did not happen in seven years, happened that day.
A sankalpa was made. The looseness of desire was gone; a deep resolve arose.
Swami Ram Tirtha was a student of mathematics. It was his final examination. He had a habit in mathematics: whatever questions were given, he would solve all of them. If the paper said, “Attempt any five of the eight,” he would solve all eight and write on top, “Please mark any five of the eight.” That was his habit. It was the night before his final paper. He sat to solve problems; he got entangled in one—it would not yield. Two o’clock passed, three o’clock. His roommate in the hostel said, Leave it. Everything does not hang on this one problem. And who knows whether this question will even come? And you are ruining the night over it; other questions will remain undone.
Ram Tirtha said, I have never taken up a question that I have not solved. Now this is my life and this is the question—there is no other question in the world. I will solve it.
His friend said, Solve it later; the exam is tomorrow.
He said, I never—either I do not take it up at all, but if I have taken it up, then this is my life and this is the problem; without solving it, I will not get up.
The friend said, Then the morning exam is gone.
Ram Tirtha said, It will not go. I will look until four o’clock; otherwise I will then make a sankalpa to solve it.
The friend said, What do you mean—sankalpa? What are you doing all this time?
He replied, Until now I have been desiring. I have been desiring to solve it.
I am showing you the difference—where desire ends and sankalpa begins.
He said, Until four I desire to solve it. After four I will make a sankalpa. I have wasted the whole night in desire; I will make a sankalpa for only five minutes.
The boy did not understand much. He said, Fine, let him do as he pleases. Four o’clock came—the problem was still unsolved. Ram Tirtha took a knife out of his trunk and set it upright on the table. The boy said, What are you doing?
He said, It is four o’clock—now I make a sankalpa. Within five minutes, either the problem is solved or this knife will be in my chest.
The boy said, You’re out of your mind! What has this problem to do with it?
Ram Tirtha said, The point is not the problem—the point is to awaken my sankalpa. He placed the knife before him; at exactly four he began to solve the problem. The boy saw that until now he had been perfectly normal; now his whole face flushed, sweat poured. Only five minutes! The span very small. What had not yielded in six hours—how could it yield in five minutes? But it was as if the whole world had vanished. The boy saw: there is no world before him; there is only him and the problem. And within three minutes, it was solved. It was solved. Ram Tirtha said, It is solved. What does not happen by desire will happen by sankalpa.
His friend said, That is a good trick. Whenever a problem won’t solve, this is a good method.
Ram Tirtha said, You won’t be able to do it. You won’t.
He said, What’s the difficulty? Set the knife before you, keep the watch, and think: if it isn’t done in five minutes, I’ll plunge the knife in. But who plunges it?
There is the difference between desire and sankalpa. A sadhaka does not move by desire. Desire has no momentum there; there, sankalpa is needed. So let your resolve become intense; feel into this truth a little. If Self-realization is not happening, do not conclude that Self-realization is difficult—the only reason is, there is still desire, not sankalpa.
So the first thing for the sadhaka is sankalpa—indispensable; without it, there is no beginning. The second thing is continuity. What you begin must have continuity—unbrokenness. Otherwise a man throws a seed here, later another there, in different soils, at different times—there will be no fruit. Continuity means: what we have sown, we tend. We protect it. And this protection is needed twenty-four hours. Sadhana is not a fragmented thing that you do for fifteen minutes in a day and are done. Sadhana is an unbroken affair. Those fifteen minutes must be protected by the remaining hours. An inner undercurrent of continuity must be maintained. Then something happens.
If not, then this will happen… I am reminded of a fakir. He once took his seekers to show them a field. They were surprised—there were eight large pits in the field. They asked, Why these pits? He said, I brought you to show you this. The owner of this field is remarkable. He tried many times to dig a well here. The first time he began to dig—there it is. But after digging a little, he quit; his mind changed. Then again he thought to dig, and started another. After a few days, his mind changed again. He dug eight wells. The entire field is spoiled—and not a single well is complete.
Many times a wave arises—to know the Self, to know God. It is a wave—not a sankalpa. A wave comes—to know. Some suffering, some trouble, gives the thought: now, know only the Self. Enough of this householding and this shop—let me know the Self. It is a wave. And a wave is only a mood. It is not a resolve; it will come and go. Then you will dig a little and forget. Later another wave comes, you dig a little and forget. Without continuity the well is never dug.
Only by digging in one place, continuously, does the water-source become available. There is no place where, if you keep digging, the water-source will not be found. It may take longer or shorter. There is no land where continuous digging does not reveal water. There is no human being who, if he keeps digging, does not find the inner life. It may take longer or shorter because each person has interposed rocks of his actions and thoughts—layers that create some distance. There are different strata in each one’s life, in each one’s consciousness. But it is impossible that the digging never completes. For that, continuity is needed—a steady stream.
So begin a little—but do it continuously; that bears fruit. Begin a lot and do it discontinuously—there is no result. Even a very gentle blow, if continuous, will have result. Continuity has a wondrous meaning. Do you know what a very gentle, continuous blow does? Water falls from the mountain—soft water falls upon hard rock. Can water break rock? Something as soft as water—how will it break stone? What could be weaker? But days pass, years pass—the steadfast rock, upon which water fell and splashed aside—the rock may not even have noticed. Days pass, years pass—and the rock breaks. One day you see: the water flows; the rock is not. It has become sand and has been carried away.
Water—so weak—but continuous—breaks the rock—so strong. So your effort may be small; if it is steady, even the greatest rock that stands in the way will be shattered.
First: sankalpa. Then: continuity. And a third thing—even more important. There may be sankalpa, there may be continuity—but if there is no waiting, sankalpa will be wasted and continuity will be wasted.
A man sows a seed… I remember childhood—we would sow the mango stone to grow a sapling, and then after half an hour dig it up to see whether a tip had appeared yet. It had not. Then we would put it back. Then after fifteen minutes, we would check again—has it come yet? It never comes.
There was no waiting. The seed we would sow; there was no waiting. And we are almost like such children—sowing mango stones that we intend to dig up every fifteen minutes to check.
Just the other day someone told me: the very first day he sat for fifteen minutes at night. Then he came and said, No spiritual power has awakened yet.
If in fifteen minutes no spiritual power awakens, he thinks the whole thing is useless. What is the point? Fifteen minutes gone for nothing, and still no spiritual power awakened.
Waiting—and infinite waiting! Waiting, and infinite waiting! The vaster the attainment you seek, the vaster the waiting needed. The more trivial the attainment, the sooner it comes.
For the trivial we are willing to wait a lot; for the vast we are unwilling to wait. I have met many people—after a day or two they say, Nothing has happened yet.
A lady would come. She would do the experiment for seven days. The first day, going back down the steps, she met me and said, Nothing has happened yet—no direct experience yet. I said, See tomorrow. The next day she came and said, Today also was wasted—still nothing. She is not unintelligent; she is a teacher—a Sanskrit teacher; she knows much about religion. She lectures on the Gita, she is quite learned. After seven days she said to me, Seven days have passed, and you keep saying tomorrow, tomorrow—if it does not happen in seven days, when will it? I said, Let us see tomorrow. Keep waiting at least until tomorrow. That is why I do not ask you for more—if I ask more, perhaps you will not do anything at all. I say only a day—so that hope may be sustained. If I ask more, perhaps you will not even begin.
So when I say to you that it can be attained here and now, let no one fall into the illusion that by sitting for ten minutes they will attain. I say it only because we are people of little patience. I give you courage—Here, now. Tomorrow, it will happen.
But reflect a little: the Vast you are envisioning—the Infinite, God, the Atman—if it were really so cheap, would you call it Atman and God? It is simple—but it is not cheap. Some price must be paid.
Our tendency is that for every commodity in the world we are willing to pay, but not for God. For every thing we are willing to spend. If God were free, even then perhaps we would hesitate whether to take Him or not. Even then we would consider: there are already five people in the house—where will we keep the sixth? He might become a nuisance.
So I tell you: sankalpa is needed, continuity is needed, waiting is needed—and infinite waiting is needed.
Let me tell you a small story—it will help you understand what infinite waiting means. And the great mystery is this: one who is ready to wait infinitely can attain in this very instant—this very instant. That attitude—of infinite waiting—that relaxed, restful state of mind: that even after an infinity we are ready to receive and will keep living and digging—such a vision, that grip, that inner mood, will give it to you now.
A story I love very much; wherever I go, I tell it. A parable. A very old sadhu—some ninety years of life gone by—initiated in childhood, absorbed in sadhana. He has a mala, he chants, he does all disciplines. He practices austerities; he starves and thirsts. One day he saw Narada passing. He said to Narada, Ninety years have passed! I hear you go to Vaikuntha and see God. Please find out—how long until my moksha, how long until my liberation? Ask a bit in God’s office—how long until my liberation? How much longer? How long must I go on? It has been too long—life is passing!
Narada said, I will ask.
Right beside him stood a banyan tree, and under it a fakir was dancing—he had become a sadhu that very morning. He was dancing and playing a tambura. Narada, jokingly, asked him too, Friend, if you want me to ask for you, I will ask for you as well.
He said nothing. He kept dancing. He kept singing. He seemed not to have heard. Narada went on. After some days he returned from Vaikuntha. He told the old man, I asked. God said, It will take three more births.
The old man had the mala in his hand. He flung it to the ground. He said, Three more births? This is injustice! This is too much! Life is squandered—and three more births!
Narada said, I am helpless—what can I do? He said three more births.
Narada went ahead. The fakir was still dancing under the tree. Narada said, Friend, you didn’t ask—but I asked anyway. He kept dancing. Narada said, But listen—do not be angry. He said that as many leaves as there are on the banyan tree under which you dance—that many more births. The fakir began to dance with double vigor. Narada said, Why are you dancing harder? He said, Then it is attained! How many leaves are there on the ground, how many on the tree—and only the leaves of this banyan? Then it is attained! And the parable says he attained in that very instant—tathkshan. At once!
The question is not of “getting” as such—it is a matter of attitude. It is a matter of your mind becoming restful and waiting. Waiting is prayer—asking nothing, waiting. Infinite waiting is prayer. Thirst is sankalpa; keeping that thirst kindled steadily is continuity; and quietly experiencing infinite waiting in that thirst is the third element. Those who consent to infinite patience—their journey can complete this very moment. The impatient reach nowhere.
These three things I wanted to say more. They were necessary—before we take leave. Keep them in mind. They are simple—not difficult. And truly, in waiting there is love. One who is unwilling to wait is willing to snatch. And in snatching there is violence. We all make violent attacks upon God—that we must possess Him. To possess means we want to own Him. In waiting, we do not want to possess Him—we do not want to be His owners; we open ourselves and wait for Him—we keep watch for His coming.
Waiting is a wondrous word—a wondrous word. The whole of sadhana is waiting—Waiting for God. It is waiting—pure waiting. And if it is waiting, one more thing will become clear: in that waiting you will have no tension. All tension comes from the hurry to obtain. All tension is from the urge to get it now—now.
If waiting is deep and dense, there will be no tension about attaining. There will be continuity of effort—but no tension for the reward. Continuity of effort, without tension for reward—this is waiting; this is effortless effort; this is cultivation by no cultivation; this is un-practice and yet practice. Call it sahaja Samadhi.
Samadhi has to be cultivated—so how can it be sahaja, natural? Every Samadhi will seem unnatural. You will have to do something—then Samadhi will happen.
Yes—you will do something—but if behind your doing there is infinite waiting, then Samadhi will become natural. The tension that comes from craving the fruit will not be there—then Samadhi will be natural.
So the meditation I am speaking of is not so much about effort and exertion and cultivation and striving—it is about waiting in a non-doing, a peace, an effortlessness. Then the happening can happen.
Thus I have told you nine elements for the preparatory ground, three elements for sadhana, and three elements as supports—so that sadhana may bear fruit on the path. These three will be your supports, the nine your preparations, and the three your efforts. If, through a harmony among them, an inner climate can be created in your consciousness, then be certain: that which I call infinitely distant is right by your hand. If you but extend your hand, you will receive it.
This is all I had to say from my side—I have said it.
Now there are a few questions. To me, they do not seem very valuable—that is the difficulty. Still… they seem valuable to you.