Senses

Beloved Osho, is there a sense of humor beyond the mind? To me meditation has a sense of seriousness in it, and in my experience a sense of humor arises from misunderstandings -- real or imagined -- which have their root in the mind. Is it possible for laughter to arise with no-mind?

I have heard about an American seeker. He was a super-rich man, and having everything, he got fed up. The more you have, the more you become aware that it is not going to satisfy you. The poor man is in a better mental condition, because he can hope that tomorrow he will have a better house, a better job, more salary, a better car. There are millions of hopes around him which will never be fulfilled, and it is good that they will not be fulfilled. The super-rich finds himself in a very strange position: all hopes are fulfilled and his hands are empty, his being is empty; nothing has been found. Life has befooled him. Those hopes have proved to be all mirages. So the man started looking for some wise man who can show him the path to find the real, the ultimate, the absolute truth. And…

Question: Maneesha has asked: OUR BELOVED MASTER, I AM SERIOUSLY CONCERNED: LAST NIGHT WHEN YOU WERE SPEAKING OF THE SENSES, AS TRADITIONALLY CLASSIFIED, YOU DID NOT MENTION THE EIGHTH SENSE, THE SENSE OF HUMOR. WHAT HAPPENED? The soldier looks at the general, then yells back, "Fuck you, you stupid bastard!" "You see, gentlemen?" replies Dogski, proudly. "Now, that is courage!" Nivedano... (Drumbeat) (Gibberish) Nivedano... (Drumbeat) Be silent. Close your eyes. Feel the body to be completely frozen. Look inwards... to the very roots of your being. Deeper... and deeper, as if you are digging a hole in the earth. To reach to the roots is to discover the buddha within you, the eternal principal of life. A little more... a little more... Sometimes one returns from only one step away -- if he had taken one step more, he would have found the roots.

Osho, another fear arises: if we remove the mind’s interference, might our whole life end in a single sight, a single word, a single fragrance!

Let it happen. There is no harm in it. Because what you call life will end anyway. There is no way to save it. Whoever tries to save it only gets into trouble. It cannot be saved; it is already passing. And if the mind’s interference drops and your life dissolves into the One, that is the very search. If you are utterly immersed in fragrance, then fragrance is your God. Then through fragrance itself you will have known the divine. Then within the sense of smell all your other senses will be absorbed. You will become a doorway of fragrance. Then you will smell with every pore of your being. Then, on every side, the divine will become fragrance for you. For this reason, in different religions different senses became important. Islam gives great value to fragrance. Surely Muhammad knew the divine as fragrance. The mind’s interference fell away…

Osho, why can the Supreme Beloved not be defined? If something can be experienced, why can it not be expressed?

We could conduct this experiment with a child: the child is born and we remove all the fibers that sense sweetness—plastic surgery, excise them, peel the tongue. Then tell him, “The sugar drop is sweet.” He will say, “Say something more; this doesn’t help. What do you mean by sweet? What does ‘sweet’ mean?” You too would be baffled: what is there to explain about “sweet”? “Sweet is sweet!” He will say, “That solves nothing—that’s mere repetition. ‘Sweet is sweet’—what did that clarify? Please explain.” How will you explain? No; there are experiences, and yet they cannot be defined. And those experiences that can be defined only mean this much: they are common experiences—everyone shares them. But the experience of the divine is supremely uncommon. It happens, once in a great while, to a rare individual. Understand the plight of that rare one. He has known—now how to tell you?…