Tathata

Is tathata the same as being just aware?

Actually, there is a slight difference between tathata and what you call "just awareness." Witnessing is also slightly different from it. You can say that being "just aware" makes up the link between witnessing and tathata. As you move from witnessing to tathata, you pass through the state of "just awareness." In the state of witnessing, there exists a firm feeling of "I am" and "you are." In the state where there is just awareness, only the feeling of "I am-ness" remains, the feeling of 'you' disappears. There is just the feeling of am-ness. In tathata, besides the feeling of am-ness, there is the feeling that my am-ness, my existence and your you-ness, your existence, constitute only one is-ness, one existence; that they are one and the same. As long as there exists just the awareness, just the feeling of am-ness, there will remain a world outside my state of…

Osho, what is the definition of God?

Words are very small. If you say God is light, then what of darkness? The scriptures have said that God is light. Suppose we accept this as a definition—then what about darkness? Where will darkness go? Darkness is too; in fact it is far more than light. Light sometimes is and sometimes is not; darkness is always, eternal. Where will you place darkness? If you say God is light, darkness is left out. If you say God is darkness, then light is left out. If you say God is both darkness and light, a contradiction arises: they cannot be together. Try to have both darkness and light in the same room. If you bring in light, darkness disappears; if you preserve darkness, you cannot have light. Then how can both be together? That becomes an impossibility. So you cannot say “both” either. Then the fourth device is to say: it…

Osho, are “just awareness,” mere alertness, and tathata the same?

In fact, when we say “just awareness,” mere alertness, there is a slight difference between that and tathata. And there is also a slight difference between that and the witness. Think of “just awareness” as the link between the witness and tathata—when you pass from witnessing to tathata, this will be the link in between: just awareness. In witnessing, the sense that “I am and you are” is firm. In just awareness there is only “am”; the sense of “you” has been forgotten—only the sense of being. In tathata, it is not only the sense of being; my being and your being are one being. Because as long as there is just awareness, as long as there is only the sense of being, there will be a boundary outside that sense of being—something I am not, from which I am separate. In tathata there is no boundary. There is only…

Question: BELOVED MASTER, WHAT IS tathata -- TOTAL ACCEPTANCE? Dharmesh, tathata is one of Buddha's most significant contributions to the world. Tathata means total acceptance: whatsoever the situation is, don't fight with it. Accept it wholeheartedly, because it is through total acceptance that transcendence happens. If you fight with it you will be unnecessarily wasting your energy. Accepting it you preserve your energy. Accepting it you become capable of understanding it, because only one who accepts can understand; one who rejects cannot understand. Anything that you reject, anything that you become inimical to, you become incapable of understanding -- because we avoid that which is rejected. We are really afraid of it so we keep it at the back and we escape from it; we find ways and means to escape from it. And if you try to escape from something, how are you going to understand it?