Ultimate Reality

Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHAT IS THE MYSTIC CONCEPTION OF ULTIMATE REALITY? Maneesha, the mystic's conception of the ultimate reality is the only authentic, real experience. It is not a thought or a concept, but an existential experience. But the mystic does not deal with the mind. His whole effort is to get rid of the prison of the mind. The mystic is not a philosopher; his world is beyond all philosophies. Philosophies are simply by-products of mental processes. They do not reflect the reality, they only reflect you. That's why there are so many philosophies in the world, contradicting each other. The reality is one. How can there be so many philosophies? -- there are not so many mystical experiences. There is only one experience; neither time changes it, nor space. Since millennia, the mystic in every country, in every race, in every age has experienced the same reality.

Osho, The Ultimate Reality has been called supreme consciousness and supreme wisdom. But when we see within it this circle of creation, then destruction, then creation again, and then destruction again, it feels very strange. Can you explain whether there is any cause, any meaning, any significance, any purpose behind this cycle?

But even as he says it, he does not see that he is contradicting himself. On the one hand he says, “Remove this terrible form and be pleased.” Pleasantness is also a mode of activity. And on the other hand he says he wants nothing to do with activity, he wants to know the essence. Pleasantness is not essence. Pleasantness too is a doing. Just as fierceness is a doing, pleasantness is a doing. Just as death is a doing, so too is life. Yet we keep choosing. He says, “Be cheerful, be joyful.” He probably believes joy is essence. It is not. Essence is emptiness—shunya. And to see shunya is very difficult. We only perceive activity. Where do we see emptiness? Only when emptiness takes on the form of activity does it come within our grasp. Otherwise, how can it be grasped? If I simply sit here in silence,…

Question: THE ONE SELF NEVER MOVES, YET IS TOO SWIFT FOR THE MIND. THE SENSES CANNOT REACH IT, YET LT IS EVER BEYOND THEIR GRASP. REMAINING STILL, IT OUTSTRIPS ALL ACTIVITY, YET IN IT RESTS THE BREATH OF ALL THAT MOVES. IT MOVES, YET MOVES NOT. IT IS FAR, YET IT IS NEAR. IT IS WITHIN ALL THIS, AND YET WITHOUT ALL THIS. HE WHO SEES EVERYTHING AS NOTHING BUT THE SELF, AND THE SELF IN EVERYTHING HE SEES, SUCH A SEER WITHDRAWS FROM NOTHING. FOR THE ENLIGHTENED, ALL THAT EXISTS IS NOTHING BUT THE SELF, SO HOW COULD ANY SUFFERING OR DELUSION CONTINUE FOR THOSE WHO KNOW THIS ONENESS? HE WHO PERVADES ALL, IS RADIANT, UNBOUNDED AND UNTAINTED, INVULNERABLE AND PURE. HE IS THE KNOWER, THE ONE MIND, OMNIPRESENT AND SELF-SUFFICIENT. HE HAS HARMONIZED DIVERSITY THROUGHOUT ETERNAL TIME. AUM PURNAMADAH PURNAMIDAM PURNAT PURNAMUDACHYATE PURNASYA PURNAMADAYA PURNAMEVA VASHISHYATE.

Osho, what is mysticism?

Mysticism is the experience that life is not logic, that life is poetry; that life is not syllogism, that life is a song. Mysticism is the declaration that life can never really be known; it is essentially unknowable. Science divides existence into two categories: the known and the unknown. The known was unknown one day; it has become known. The unknown is unknown today; tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, it will also become known. Science believes that sooner or later a point of understanding will arrive when there will be only one category: the known, all will have been known. The unknown is slowly being reduced to the known. Mysticism is the declaration that life consists of three categories: one, the known; another, the unknown; and the third, and the most important, is the unknowable -- which has not been known and which will never be known. And that…