Essence

Can you tell us more about the essential?

Buddhist monks go on following the Buddha. They sit the same way, they talk the same way, they behave the same way. That is not going to help at all. That is not going to make you religious. That is not going to make you another Buddha. You are being simply stupid. And the more stupid you are the better you can imitate, because imitation needs no intelligence. In fact, only a mediocre mind can be imitative. The more intelligent you are, the more you want to be simply yourself, whatsoever it is. Now the whole thing goes non-essential. For Buddha it was essential to sit that way; that was his intuitive feeling. When Buddha dropped the ideas imposed on him by others, his followers left him. He had five followers -- before he became very famous he had only five followers; that is before he became enlightened. Those five…

Osho, gurdjieff talks about three aspects of being: essence, false personality and true personality -- false personality being a false, conditioned vehicle for our real essence, and true personality being that which can be developed and conveys and protects our real self.

PRIMITIVE PEOPLES LIVE IN THE ESSENCE STATE LIKE ANIMALS. THEY ARE BEAUTIFUL BUT NOT ENLIGHTENED. IF ENLIGHTENMENT IS NATURAL AND OUR BIRTHRIGHT, WHY ARE NOT THE PRIMITIVE PEOPLES ENLIGHTENED, OR ARE THEY? I HEAR YOU TELL US TO ACCEPT THE ANIMAL THAT WE ARE, RETURN TO ESSENCE. I HAVE READ GURDJIEFF SAYING YOU MUST BECOME YOUR TRUE SELF -- THE MASTER. HE SAID BEWARE OF BEING SWALLOWED BY THE ANIMAL. GIVE IT SOME CIGARETTES OR ICE CREAM AND IT WILL BE CALMED. WHAT IS TRUE PERSONALITY AND WHAT IS ITS RELATIONSHIP TO ESSENCE? Love is sharing; greed is hoarding. Greed only wants and never gives, and love knows only giving and never asks for anything in return; it is unconditional sharing. There may be some alchemical reason that LOBHA has become 'love' in the English language. LOBHA becomes love as far as inner alchemy is concerned. Swallow the animal! That…

Question: First question: Osho, what message do you want to give to the world? Most people have broken the veena of their life this very way. Those who sit in your temples and ashrams—whom you call saints and sages—are such corpses, their veenas broken. No melody rises from them—gloomy, without celebration, no music, no fragrance. And these sick, deranged people are making others sick and deranged. What they learned, they teach. Thus humanity is caught in a deep disease. I want to offer you a religion that teaches you the art of placing your fingers upon the veena; that teaches you friendship with the veena; that helps you hear the subtle, subtle notes hidden in its strings; that makes you so skillful that one day the raga Deepak arises—that even extinguished lamps light up, such music is born. What the divine has given you cannot be useless.

Master lu-tsu said: only the primal spirit and the true nature overcome time and space.

THE PRIMAL SPIRIT IS BEYOND THE POLAR DIFFERENCES. HERE IS THE PLACE WHENCE HEAVEN AND EARTH DERIVE THEIR BEING. WHEN STUDENTS UNDERSTAND HOW TO GRASP THE PRIMAL SPIRIT THEY OVERCOME THE POLAR OPPOSITES OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS AND TARRY NO LONGER IN THE THREE WORLDS BUT ONLY HE WHO HAS ENVISIONED HUMAN NATURE'S ORIGINAL FACE IS ABLE TO DO THIS. WHEN MEN ARE SET FREE FROM THE WOMB THE PRIMAL SPIRIT DWELLS IN THE SQUARE INCH BUT THE CONSCIOUS SPIRIT DWELLS BELOW IN THE HEART. THIS HEART IS DEPENDENT ON THE OUTSIDE WORLD. IF A MAN DOES NOT EAT FOR ONE DAY EVEN IT FEELS EXTREMELY UNCOMFORTABLE. IF IT HEARS SOMETHING TERRIFYING IT THROBS; IF IT HEARS SOMETHING ENRAGING IT STOPS; IF IT IS FACED WITH DEATH IT BECOMES SAD; IF IT SEES SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL IT IS DAZZLED. BUT THE HEAVENLY HEART IN THE HEAD, WHEN WOULD IT HAVE MOVED…