Moods

Beloved Osho, in the last few days I heard you speak about watching the clouds of moods passing by. The other day I heard you saying: be total, go totally into it. I like to watch the clouds of anger, sadness, jealousy, etc. Passing by, but not moods like happiness and joy. I like to become identified with these moods and go totally into them and express them. Should I watch every mood or should I go totally into every mood? I cannot bring these things together. Would you please comment?

Anutosh Samat, no one can bring these two things together. You will have to choose one. My suggestion is, watch everything with equal distance, with equal aloofness. Sadness, anger, jealousy, happiness, joy, love -- remain aloof from all and just be total in your watching. Your watchfulness should be total. You be identified with your watching because that is your nature, that's what you are. There is no question of disidentifying with it; even if you try you cannot succeed. Your intrinsic nature is simply that of a witness. A single quality of awareness makes your whole being. So watch everything as if it is a cloud passing by. I can see your difficulty: you would like to be identified with love, you would like to be identified with happiness and you would like not to be identified with sadness, you would not like to be identified with misery. But…

Osho said that there was no need to try to still the mind, to stop the thoughts. He said that just as the traffic goes by and one remains on the sidewalk, unaffected, just a watcher, so one should simply witness the thoughts as they went by. We are not our thoughts, and recognising that we are the witness is enough. The very acceptance of the thoughts makes one more relaxed. The relaxation helps to create a distance, to separate oneself. To evaluate a thought as good or bad means that you are attached to your thoughts -- so one should not put labels on them.] ... put yourself aside, sit under a tree, and just watch the traffic. Soon, one day, the traffic disappears and the road is empty. Suddenly there is an interval and in that interval is meditation. But that interval cannot be created or cultivated.

Beloved Osho, how does watching lead to no-mind? I am more and more able to watch my body, my thoughts and feelings and this feels beautiful. But moments of no thoughts are few and far between. When I hear you saying "meditation is witnessing," I feel I understand. But when you talk about no-mind, it doesn't sound easy at all. Would you please comment?

The small child rides on the horse with a servant riding on another horse. A tremendous desire arises in him when the road turns, just to have a look again back to the family house, its garden. The father must be standing there, the mother must be crying... but he remembers that the father has said, "Don't look back." And he does not look back. With tears in his eyes, he turns with the road. Now he cannot see his house anymore and one never knows how long it will take -- perhaps years and years -- until he will be able to see his father and mother and his family again. He reaches the monastery. At the gate of the monastery the abbot meets him, receives him gracefully, as if he is a grownup, bows down to him as he bows down to the abbot. And the abbot says,…

Osho does witnessing always bring joy? The moments that I call witnessing sometimes feel distant -- almost cold in their neutrality. Other times it is like sprouting wings and soaring in joy over the open sea.

THE STATE OF WITNESSING IS NEITHER COLD NOR hot. It is neither happiness nor unhappiness. It is neither dark nor light. It is neither life nor death. The Upanishads say NETI NETI -- neither this nor that. If you feel joy you have already become identified; witnessing is gone. If you feel sad you are no more a witness; you have forgotten witnessing, you have become involved. You are colored by your psychology of the moment. Joy, sadness, all these qualities, are part of your psychology. And witnessing is a transcendence; it is not psychological. The whole art of meditation consists in witnessing. Then what does it bring? At the most we can say it brings total peace; it simply brings eternal silence. You cannot define it as joy. The moment you define it as joy you have fallen into the world of duality again. Then you have become part…