Nothingness

Question: OSHO, IS THERE QUALITY IN NOTHINGNESS? Meditation is nothing but the method of discovering the positive aspect of nothingness, the positive quality of it. Meditation means dropping the content of the mind very consciously, knowing that you are dropping it. And when you have dropped everything, suddenly you realize that everything has disappeared but you ARE and you are more full than ever because all those things, all that junk that you have been carrying all along was simply taking your space. Now the whole space, the whole sky is available, and your heart can open its petals. We call it in the East "the one-thousand-petaled lotus." Now there is space. With all the junk that you carry in your mind, where is the space for the one-thousand-petaled lotus to open? You are not spacious enough.

Beloved Osho, the other night, following the energy between my eyes, I went into myself, looking for "who am I?" at a certain point I found myself immersed in great nothingness. The sensation was very strong. I couldn't go on; I felt so afraid of this emptiness that I stopped. Osho, what is this energy that is felt between the eyes? Is it the so-called "third eye"? If this was the right way, why was I so afraid and trembling?

Ramaprem, this is the right way. That's why you became so afraid, because the right way means a certain death, the death of your ego, the death of your personality as you have known it, and the beginning and the birth of your essential self. But the death comes first, hence the fear and trembling. The resurrection comes later. You have been in a very beautiful space. This is the third eye that in the East has been talked about for at least ten thousand years. It is only symbolic. You have two eyes to see the world of duality -- the day and night, the beautiful and the ugly, the true and the false. The whole world consists of dualities. The third eye is a poetic and symbolic expression that your two eyes have become one, that all duality has disappeared. For the outside world two eyes are needed,…

Question: THEREFORE, O SARIPUTRA, IN EMPTINESS THERE IS NO FORM, NOR FEELING, NOR PERCEPTION, NOR IMPULSE, NOR CONSCIOUSNESS; NO EYE, EAR, NOSE, TONGUE, BODY, MIND; NO FORMS, SOUNDS, SMELLS, TASTES, TOUCHABLES OR OBJECTS OF MIND; NO SIGHT-ORGAN ELEMENT, AND SO FORTH, UNTIL WE COME TO: NO MIND-CONSCIOUSNESS ELEMENT; THERE IS NO IGNORANCE, NO EXTINCTION OF IGNORANCE, AND SO FORTH, UNTIL WE COME TO: THERE IS NO DECAY AND DEATH, NO EXTINCTION OF DECAY AND DEATH. THERE IS NO SUFFERING, NO ORIGINATION, NO STOPPING, NO PATH. THERE IS NO COGNITION, NO ATTAINMENT Nothingness is the fragrance of the beyond. It is the opening of the heart to the transcendental. It is the unfoldment of the one-thousand-petaled lotus. It is man's destiny.

Just go on seeing what is happening -- what the body is doing, what the mind is doing. Not that you have to verbalise it. You are not to evaluate it, you are not to judge it. You are not even to label what it is. Simply go on seeing whatsoever is. You remain with it and yet you remain far away. This experience can grow slowly, slowly. Just think -- one day you were a child, then the body changed; you became a young man. But have you changed? Has that awareness inside you changed? It is the same. You may be young, you may be old. You may be ill, you may be healthy, sometimes poor, sometimes rich, sometimes famous, well-known, sometimes thrown into oblivion -- nobody bothers about you, sometimes a somebody and sometimes a nobody.