Perfect Jewel

Question: BELOVED MASTER, IS IT POSSIBLE TO MISS THE PERFECT JEWEL? IS IT POSSIBLE? Prem Maitri, it depends how conscious you are. If you are conscious it is impossible to miss. If you really know the perfect jewel, if you recognize it, if it is your own vision, your own understanding, it is impossible to miss it. But it may not be so. You may have heard others say, "This is a perfect jewel"; it may be a borrowed understanding. Then it is not only possible to miss it, it is absolutely inevitable that you will miss it -- it is impossible not to miss it. If you come across a buddha and you pay your respects just because others are paying their respects, because others are saying, "He is a buddha, he is enlightened, he is awakened," you will miss.

Beloved Osho, so very close just because it's so very close, you cannot get this truth out of your own eyes. When you open your eyes it strikes you, and when you close your eyes it's not lacking either. When you open your mouth you speak of it, and when you shut your mouth it appears by itself. But if you try to receive it by stirring your mind, you've already missed it by eighteen thousand miles.

It is such a rejoicing to see Ta Hui coming closer and closer to reality, to the truth, and to his awakening. Just a step more and the old Ta Hui will be no longer there; and the new Ta Hui is naturally going to speak the language of all the awakened ones without exception. This sutra is one of the most important that we have come across up to now. The greatest difficulty with the human mind is that whatever is available from the beginning it tends to forget, it takes it for granted. There is no gap between you and your truth because you are the truth. This is such a tremendous phenomenon, but one goes on missing it for the simple reason that every search leads you away from it, every question misguides you, every answer is going to be wrong. If truth was separate from you,…

Obviously, I have dodged all the past buddhas that I came across, but I now know that as long as I am in this body I am not going to leave this one. But, then, a lurking fear remains lest I leave, or you leave, the body before nonphysical communion is established.

That fear is natural, and, in a way, good. Nothing to be afraid of in it; that fear will help. All fears are not bad, and all fearlessnesses are not good. Sometimes fearlessness is simply foolishness; sometimes fear is wisdom. This fear I call wisdom, because you know this is possible. You have been missing many Buddhas in the past -- more possibility is there that you will miss me also, because you have become so trained in missing. The fear is good. That will help. The fear is wise; that will not allow you to relax and become unaware -- that will not allow you to miss again. Be thankful to the fear, and always remember, fear is not always bad. When you find a snake on the path, what do you do? You simply jump. Are you afraid? Are you a coward? Some idiot can tell you that…

Osho, in a letter you wrote: Do not remain in indecision; do not look back. The temple doors are wide open. After thousands of years such an opportunity descends upon the earth. And know that these doors will not remain open forever. It can be missed easily. Therefore I keep calling: come and enter! I stand at the door, knocking and knocking. And I knock because in some other birth and another age I had given a promise.

At night a chariot arrived. The sound of wheels at the door. In his sleep the head priest felt, He has come. He said, Listen, does anyone hear a chariot? The other priests said, Stop this nonsense. All day you plagued us; will you not stop now? Your head has gone bad. No chariot is coming; it is thunder. They went to sleep. Then someone alighted from the chariot, climbed the steps, knocked at the door. One of the priests muttered in his sleep, Seems someone is knocking. The suspicion was there, the mind wavered—perhaps the dream was true! The chief priest said, This is the limit! It isn’t only I who am entangled in dreams—you are too. It’s just a gust of wind rattling the door. Who will knock at midnight? And is God a thief, to come at midnight? God comes in broad daylight, under the sun. Now…