Nonduality

Osho, if the truth of life is nonduality, then why is there duality?

One world, shaped into the visible. One imagining, merely possible. One world, incessantly eloquent. One solitude, soundless. One unbroken surge of movement. One unmoving, waveless stillness. Two readings, one poem. There are not two. There are two readings—the poem is one. Truth is one. Look while half-asleep and the world appears. Look awake, and the Divine appears. The world and the Divine are not two different things. The sleeping person, when he looked for the Divine, saw the world; and the awakened person, when he looked at the world, saw the Divine. The awakened one says: the world is not; the Divine is. The sleeping one says: where is the Divine? There is only the world. These are two perspectives; the truth is one. Two readings, one poem!

Osho, from the exposition of Lao Tzu’s nondual philosophy it is clear that he had attained supreme knowing. Then why is it that only a handful in the world have taken his vision of life as their guiding light? Is this very lack of acceptance not a harsh criticism of his standpoint? And does the wide adoption of Aristotle not prove the excellence of his science? Please throw light on this!

These statements of Lao Tzu are among the finest ever uttered by man. He stands on the last frontier where nothing more can be said—beyond is silence. On that ultimate boundary he says a few things. Only when someone reaches there can he understand; if he does not, he cannot. In that, there is no fault of Lao Tzu. And there are some things you will not know until they become part of your own experience. A small child—if you tell him things that are not part of his experience—will hear like a deaf person; he will forget. They will not even be imprinted on his memory, because only that is imprinted which matches experience. Our experience must resonate somewhere. What Lao Tzu says does not match our experience anywhere. That his book survives at all—is that not something! His words do not meet our experience anywhere. Lao Tzu says:…

Osho, why has this silent experience of the Nameless been given dualistic names like Heaven and Earth, or consciousness and matter? Why has nonduality not been expressed?

Expression can only be of duality; nonduality remains inexpressible. So, at the most, in speaking, what can be done is two—in speech. The nearest to truth that speech can come is two—in speech. Outside speaking, only one remains. But language cannot say anything without breaking it into two. If Lao Tzu is speaking, writing, he is committing the minimum mistake possible. Nothing more accurate can be done with words. And even if we want to deny this, we will still have to use words. Then we say “nondual”—not two. Yet to say “not two” we still use the two. Even to say “not,” one has to say it. The two will follow us. As long as we make the effort to speak, the two will follow us. Leave speaking, and the one remains. You may say, “Why don’t we just say ‘one’?” But we don’t notice what happens. The moment…

Osho, Sahajo, who has realized nonduality, says, “Practice devotion without desire.” But then the question arises: how can the devotee and God remain separate? Kindly clarify.

Practice devotion without desire! Nishkama bhakti—desireless devotion. So devotion can be of two kinds: one with desire, one without desire. With desire means: some demand. Without desire means: no demand. Without desire means: the joy is in devotion itself. You dance and sing; dance, kirtan, bhajan are themselves the goal. You sing because singing is bliss. You dance because dancing is bliss. There is no reward beyond the dance. After dancing we will not wait before God saying, “We danced so long; now give us a prize, now let us go home.” A devotee’s dance is not the dance of a courtesan, who dances while waiting for a payoff. A devotee’s dance is the dance of existence—there is nothing further to ask for. The dance is the final moment of joy, ahobhava—a sense of wonder. So desireless devotion means: devotion itself is bliss. Devotion with desire means: devotion is a…