Process

Every day you talk about the 'earth' and about the 'sky' -- about the potential and about the ultimate. But what is the 'ladder' in between? What is the process that happens in between? Why do you not talk about the 'ladder'?

Remember the picture again: is there a ladder between the old woman and the young woman? There is no ladder because they consist of the same lines. Nothing changes, the picture remains the same and you don't go anywhere... but a shift, a flick in consciousness. You see things in one way, you assemble things in one way, then you see things in another way, you assemble things in another way. Neither are materialists right, absolutely right -- they are not, they are partially true; nor are Vedantins right -- they are partially true. They both suffer from partiality. That's why their argument can continue forever, it will never be decisive. Just think of two persons arguing: "In this picture there is a young woman", and another man says "There is an old woman." They can go on arguing forever because they have partial truth, and it can never be…

Beloved Osho, are there really discrete stages on the way to the ultimate happening, as this upanishad seems to suggest, or does this happening occur suddenly and unexpectedly? Is it a matter of long conscious effort, or of a sudden total surrender to existence?

So this Upanishad is dividing, not because divisions are there, but because you will not be able to understand the whole. The whole will be too much, too complex. The whole will be incomprehensible, and understanding will not be possible. That's why the division into seven stages, and that's why there are so many divisions. You can divide in fourteen, you can divide in seventeen -- you can divide into as many as you like. And theologicians go on fighting about these divisions. They are workable, utilitarian -- not existential. Just feel your body, close your eyes and feel. Where are the divisions? It is one. But if your eyes are not functioning well you will go to the eye specialist. And you know that eyes are not separate, they are one with the body, so then why go to the eye specialist? You can go to any doctor. The…

Osho, you said that if the prana—the vital energy—becomes utterly, totally eager for the Lord, union can happen in a single instant. And you also say that for this union infinite patience is required. These are two extremes!

No; they are two forms of the same state—two stages of the same state. Understand! I continually say that to attain him one needs infinite patience. And I also continually say that he can be attained in a single moment. The two statements appear contradictory. For if he can be attained in a single moment, what need is there for infinite patience? Then there would be no need to be patient even for a moment—what can be attained in a moment, let us attain it now. And when I say that only by holding infinite patience will you attain, you feel that infinite patience must mean it cannot happen in a single moment; even if it happens in infinite lifetimes, that would still be early. They seem opposed, but they are not. The mathematics of life is like a riddle. They are complementary. Try to understand! He can be attained…

Is there still an individual body?

No. It only seems so to others. If I try to talk about it, to verbalize it, then the whole thing becomes a problem. Whenever we talk about what happens when one goes beyond meditation, it becomes a paradox. It can never be explained because any type of explanation will create new paradoxes, new contradictions. This fifth stage is an explosion of everything that has been. Now nothing remains. It is an explosion of the totality that you were: your memory, your intellect, your ego, your personality, your being, your soul. Everything that you were is now not; you just go beyond. There is no you; you become everything. That is the point of Brahman, cosmic consciousness. Dynamic Meditation can lead you only up to the fourth stage, satori. The fifth is beyond method. Guidance is possible only up to the fourth stage. That is why Krishnamurti talks of no-guidance.…