Meditation -- the Ultimate Music The Shadow Of The Whip #19

[A sannyasin asks: Would give me any guidance on places that might be good for me to visit. I wish to go on a pilgrimage in India.]

Go to all the buddhist places: Bodh Gaya, Sarnath, Sanchi, Ajanta, Ellora -- all the buddhist places. And if you are close to some other place you can go, mm? But your whole plan should be to visit all the buddhist places. They will give you great insight into things, and you may start remembering your past lives. (Osho had said to this sannyasin that he had been a Buddhist in past lives.) But before you go, you meditate well, do a few groups -- and particularly the buddhist meditation group here, mm ? That will prepare your mind.

And then you start from Ajanta, Ellora, Sanchi, Sarnath, Bodh Gaya -- the buddhist places, mm? and keep Buddha in mind. Dream about Buddha... think about Buddha. It will be a great help.

[Osho said one could visit places as a tourist but one would miss much.... ]

You can go and you can visit -- then they are ruins. Something in you can make them again alive, then they are no more ruins. But that depends on you. If you want to visit just ruins, there is no problem you can go. You can go to Bodh Gaya but you will not feel Buddha there at all. And he can be felt there.

When once such a person exists, he leaves such tremendous energy there. He became enlightened in that place -- Bodh Gaya -- under the same tree that still exists. He continuously walked for years around the temple; those stones are still there on which he would walk and meditate, and under the tree he would rest and meditate.

If you have a feel, and if you have some understanding of how a Buddhist meditates while walking, how a Buddhist sits silently and where he goes into his inner world, those stones will not be ordinary stones. If you can also go into that space, you will have a tremendous realisation.

This is my approach: if you want to go and see Lake Galilee and you want to visit Jerusalem; do some christian prayer -- otherwise it is meaningless. If you want to go to some hindu places, then do some hindu meditation -- because these places open their doors only to those who are ready.. They are not really for visitors.

In the East visitors have never existed -- this is a western phenomenon. Unless somebody has a feel for some place, he will never go. A Mohammedan will go to Mecca -- nobody else will go. For centuries Mohammedans have not allowed anybody else to enter, because it is pointless! Unless you have a love affair with Mohammed, it is pointless. Why crowd the place? In fact your presence creates a wrong vibration. If somebody is there who is just a visitor, a tourist -- which is a very ugly phenomenon -- he creates a certain vibe.

I have seen tourists -- just moving with their cameras, and foolish chit-chat, and with their radios, where one needs to be absolutely silent. And within one hour they have visited the whole place and they have gone -- finished! They have taken the pictures for their albums. Now they can go back and tell others that they have been to Bodh Gaya, they have seen the place.

This is absurd -- because the place is not an outer thing. Unless you are in tune with it, the sound will not happen. You may go and you may miss. So it is futile !

My feeling is: first do a few groups here -- particularly the buddhist group -- and after the buddhist group immediately go with that same quality inside you. Walk the way that Buddha taught his disciples to walk... with that grace, with that silence, with that contentment, with that awareness. Breathe as the Buddha has taught his disciples -- in a certain rhythmic way. And then don't be in a hurry. When you go there, be there for two, three days. It is not a question of just seeing the temple -- it can be seen within fifteen minutes.

And don't rush to another place -- just stay there for two, three days. In many moods sit under the tree. Sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the evening... sometimes deep in the night. Bribe the priest and go in the night -- in the middle of the night when nobody goes there, and all visitors are gone, and guides and tourists are no more there, and the place is absolutely silent as it must have been when Buddha was sitting there. Deep in the middle of the night, in the dark night, just sit under the tree.

Just remain available there, and there is a possibility that you may come in contact with something. Then it is worth making that effort....

Anand means bliss, blissfulness, and gandharva means the celestial musician. In the indian mythology, Gandharva is the musician of the gods. In heaven, Gandharva is the musician of the gods -- he plays for the gods. So it has become synonymous with music. And that is going to be your path. So listen to music in all the various forms, in all the varieties. Birds singing, or the rain falling, or a waterfall, or just the wind passing through the pines... dancing... instruments; if you want to play, play, otherwise listen. And you also sing sometimes. There is no need to sing anything meaningfully, mm? Just a sound, a babbling will do... just a chanting of anything -- meaninglessly -- just as one chants the alphabet. But let music be your very centre, and you will be tremendously benefited.

Music is one of the most natural ways to grow. And if one can understand music, there is no need to understand anything else. The whole existence is musical. There is a music... eternal music. It is there even in silence. In fact it is more so when there is silence. The stars are singing -- One has just to develop a receptivity.

So I am not saying that you have to become a musician. If you feel, good.... Otherwise the music is available. You can become just a receiver, a total receptor, and that will do. But .creating a little music is also helpful and good. And it is not a performance, so it is not meant for anybody -- it is just for your own joy.
What have you been doing?

[The new sannyasin says he is a sculptor working with stone.]

Mm, mm ! It is music -- music in the stones.... That's very good... that's very good. It is music. All art is music... only medias differ.

Meditation is the ultimate music -- it is medium-less. And when there is no medium there is perfection, because the medium, whatsoever it is, creates hindrances. You can work as much as you want, but still you will feel that if there were no medium then the thing would have been perfect. If the medium stands there against your work.... Mm? if you are working on a stone and the stone resists.... In every possible way it gives you a good fight -- nobody wants to yield, nobody wants to surrender. The stone also has its own will -- it wants to keep its shape, it is not ready to be altered so easily. You can do it, but still you will feel the medium is a barrier.

The medium is needed to express, but the very medium of expression becomes the barrier. You can use beautiful words to express truth, but they become the barrier.

In China they say that when a musician becomes perfect, he throws his instrument, because then the instrument creates disturbance. When an archer is perfect, he breaks his bow. And when a poet has come to perfection, he no more says anything -- he keeps quiet. Then his poetry is silence.

So meditation is the ultimate music because the medium disappears. Music is there but there is no medium. Only those who can hear without the medium will hear it, and only those who can see without the medium will see it.

That's why Jesus goes on saying to his disciples, 'Those who have ears, hear, and those who have eyes, see.' He was talking not to blind men, not to deaf people -- they were as normal as we. But he goes on saying again and again, 'If you have eyes...' He is talking about some message which cannot be expressed... which remains unexpressed. And one who can see something invisible, only he can understand that message, otherwise not. So your meditations will help you tremendously. Your art will be transformed -- it will reach new altitudes.

In the East we have always been working in every way, in every possible way, to reach God. It may be religion, or it may be music, or it may be dancing -- whatsoever -- but in the East our effort has been to reach God from everywhere. So everything eastern has a quality of religiousness to it:

Sculpture has a tremendous religious quality. The western sculpture lacks much. It is more sexual, more physical, more earthly. And if sometimes it moves away from the physical, at the most it reaches to the psychological. And then too out of one hundred, ninety percent becomes pathological: Picasso and others -- Chagall -- look a little pathological... as if the mind were not quiet, as if the mind were neurotic. Things are topsy-turvy; the symmetry is lost. It seems a crowd inside. Picasso doesn't seem to be one man -- seems to be many men, and all painting together. So the painting comes, but it is a collage -- it is not one piece, it is not unity. It is not cosmos, it is a chaos... a neurotic thing.

And if you watch Picasso's painting too long, it will create pathology, nausea, apprehension and fear. If you watch an eastern painting -- japanese, chinese or indian -- just by watching it you will become quiet and peaceful.

[Osho recounted a taoist story about a king who commissioned an artist to paint a picture. Months passed, during which the king would impatiently enquire as to whether the painting was ready to be seen yet.

Finally the artist finished his work and showed it to the king -- it was a picture of a forest with a track going through it and into a hill. The track disappeared into the horizon as far as one could see. It was a beautiful picture -- almost lifelike -- and the king asked the artist where the track led to.

'I don't know myself,' said the artist, 'I'm going to find out.' And with that, the story goes, he went along the track and disappeared into the painting.... ]

I love this story!

If you really watch a painting, you should disappear. Just by watching it your mind will subside, thoughts will disappear. And when mind is not there, you are not there -- then you disappear. So, much is going to happen!

And for short you can simply use Katya. Anand means bliss and Katyayani is a name of the mother goddess. In India we conceive of God in both ways. A few religions conceive of Him as man, a few religions conceive of Him as woman... a few as 'he' and few as 'she'. In India the male chauvinist attitude has never been very predominant, so down the centuries both the traditions have continued: a few think of Him as father, and few think of Him as mother. Katyayani means mother goddess; a name of God -- in the form of a woman. So the whole name will mean blissful mother goddess.

Forget the old name completely, mm? The old is gone, and this this is the beginning of a long journey. And the journey is such that it is sweet in the beginning, it is sweet in the middle, it is sweet-in the end. But it is a long journey.... So a great pilgrimage starts this moment. Feel blessed ! Good, Katya. Good! (Osho touches her head in blessing, smiling warmly.)

It is a name of an ancient Buddha. Gautam is only one Buddha; many have preceded him and many have followed him. Buddhahood is a state of consciousness; it has nothing to do with Gautam Buddha. Buddha is just like Christ -- Jesus is his name, Christ is his state of consciousness; Gautam is his name, Buddha is his state of consciousness, hence he is called Gautam Buddha.

This is the name: Samantbhadra -- he is an ancient Buddha. Samant means infinitely, and bhadra means graceful; infinite grace -- that is the literal meaning of the word. But it is a name of an ancient Buddha, very significant. And I am giving it to you because I see the possibility that you will be growing on buddhist lines, potentially you are a Buddhist. So if you know it consciously, many pitfalls can be avoided and the path can become very straight and direct.

[In answer to Osho's invitation to take sannyas, a visitor replies: I feel very confused about it. I don't know myself what to do. I can't get hold of anything.]

You will never be able to get hold of anything that I say (laughter). I am so contradictory (a chuckle in his voice) that it is very difficult. I don't allow any hold... I am almost like mercury. So if you want to get in, get in -- don't bother about the hold. You will never have it -- and there is no need.

You have entered life without having any hold on it. One falls in love without having any hold on love. And one day one dies -- and without even understanding the ABC's of death. My sannyas is almost like that. I don't even try to explain it, because explanation makes things ugly. Explanation is not needed.

The whole effort is to drop reason and all the games reason goes on playing. It is an absurd step. Mm? sannyas is an absurdity, a sort of voluntary madness -- willingly one becomes a little mad. You try it! It will lead you into new spaces. And it will be very helpful. You can do the same meditations without becoming a sannyasin, but you will miss much because you will feel that you are an outsider and you will never be able to get into the very spirit of it.

All great things happen when you have become an insider. Then you float easily, you open easily -- otherwise one remains on guard. If you are here without becoming a sannyasin, you will continuously remain on guard, and my sannyasins will go on attacking you, 'Why are you not becoming a sannyasin?' So you will remain on the defence and that will create a fear. You will be afraid to communicate, afraid to make friends, because the fear will always be there -- if you become too friendly, these people are going to seduce you into sannyas. And you will be a little afraid of me too.

Once you have taken sannyas, all fear disappears -- now there is nothing else. The worst has happened! (laughter)
Just do it right now!

[The visitor says: Yes, please.]

Prem means love and buddha means consciousness, intelligence; loving intelligence, loving consciousness, or love awareness. Love is the first thing to be done and the second thing will be awareness. So the name is just a condensed formula for your whole work: first warming up through love, and when you are floating, flowing, you have melted, and you are no more frozen and cold, no more indifferent, compassion has arisen -- then the next step is to become aware.

Feel more loving, affectionate, caring. Mix with people, hold hands, hug people -- people are beautiful. Don't miss any opportunities in which you can be loving -- never miss any opportunity of love. Then you have created the right jumping board for awareness, and then your awareness will not make you cold. Your awareness will be like a flame -- alive; it will not be dead.