Nietzsche is right when he says that man cannot live with the truth. He needs lies he lives through lies. Nietzsche says that we go on saying that we want the truth, but no one wants it. Our so-called truths are nothing but lies, beautiful lies. No one is ready to see the naked reality.

This mind cannot enter on the path of yoga because yoga means a methodology to reveal the truth.Yoga is a method to come to a non-dreaming mind. Yoga is the science to be in the here and now.Yoga means now one is ready not to move into the future. Yoga means one is ready now not to hope, not to jump ahead of one's own being. Yoga means to encounter the reality as it is.

So one can enter yoga, or the path of yoga, only when he is totally frustrated with his own mind as it is. If one is still hoping that something can be gained through your mind, then yoga is not for you. -- Osho, Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 1, CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION TO THE PATH OF YOGA

Day, night, mind goes on moving from no-dream to dream, then from dream to no-dream again. This is an inner rhythm. Not only that we continuously dream, in life also we project hopes into the future. The present is almost always a hell [Nietzsche].

One can live today because of the tomorrow. One hopes that something is going to happen tomorrow – perhaps, some doors of paradise will open tomorrow. Because they never open today. And when tomorrow will come it will not come as a tomorrow, it will come as today, and by this time the mind has moved again - hoping for tomorrow. One can go on moving more & more into future. This is what dreaming means. One is not in this reality, that which is nearby, that which is here & now, one is somewhere else –moving ahead, jumping ahead into the future. [Hoping].

And that future tomorrow... it has many names. People call it heaven, some people call it moksha, nirvana, but it is always in the future. Somebody is thinking in terms of wealth, but that wealth is going to be in the future. And somebody is thinking in terms of paradise, and that paradise is going to be after one is dead – far away into the future. One wastes their present for that which is not: this is what dreaming means. One cannot be here & now. That seems too arduous, to be just in this moment.

One can be in the past because again that is dreaming – memories, remembrance of things which are no more Or one can be in the future, which is projection, which is again creating something out of the past. The future is nothing but past projected again – more colorful, more beautiful, more pleasant, but it is past refined.

One cannot think anything else than of the past. Future is nothing but past projected again, and both are not. The present is, but one is never in the present. This is what dreaming means. And Nietzsche is right when he says that man cannot live with the truth. He needs lies he lives through lies. Nietzsche says that we go on saying that we want the truth, but no one wants it. Our so-called truths are nothing but lies, beautiful lies. No one is ready to see the naked reality.

This mind cannot enter on the path of yoga because yoga means a methodology to reveal the truth. Yoga is a method to come to a non-dreaming mind. Yoga is the science to be in the here & now. Yoga means now one is ready not to move into the future. Yoga means one is ready now not to hope, not to jump ahead of one's being. Yoga means to encounter the reality as it is. So one can enter yoga, or the path of yoga, only when he is totally frustrated with his own mind as it is.

If one is still hoping that he can gain something through the mind, yoga is not for this type of individual. A total frustration is needed – the revelation that this mind which projects is futile, the mind that hopes is nonsense, it leads nowhere. It simply closes one's eyes; it intoxicates; it never allows reality to be revealed. It is a protection against reality.

The mind is a drug. It is against that which is. So unless one is totally frustrated with one's own mind, with one's way of being, the way one has existed up to now, if one can drop it unconditionally, then one can enter onto the path.

So many become interested, but very few enter because the interest may be just because of the mind. One may be hoping now, through yoga, that something may be gained, but the achieving motive is there - one may become perfect through yoga, may reach to the blissful state of perfect being, may become one with the brahman, may achieve the satchitananda. This may be the cause why there is an interest in yoga. If this is the cause then there can be no meeting between one's own being and the path which is yoga. Then one is totally against it, moving in a totally opposite dimension.

Yoga means that now there is no hope, now there is no future, now there are no desires. One is ready to know what is. One is not interested in what can be, what should be, what ought to be. One is not interested! One is interested only in that which is, because only the real can free you, only this reality can become liberation.

Total despair is needed. That despair is called dukkha by Buddha. And if one is really in misery, don’t hope, because hope will only prolong the misery. Hope is a drug. It can help one to reach their death only and nowhere else. All hopes can only lead to death. And they are leading.

Become totally hopeless – no future, no hope. Difficult. Needs courage to face the real. But such a moment comes to everyone, some time or other. A moment comes to every human being when he feels total hopelessness. Absolute meaninglessness happens to him. When he becomes aware that whatsoever he is doing is useless, wheresoever he is going, he is going to nowhere, all life is meaningless – suddenly hopes drop, future drops, and for the first time one is in tune with the present, for the first time one is face to face with this reality." -- Osho, CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION TO THE PATH OF YOGA

 

Mind can be either the source of bondage or the source of freedom. Mind becomes the gate for this world, the entry; it can also become the exit. Mind leads you to the hell; mind can lead you also to the heaven. So it depends how the mind is used. Right use of mind becomes meditation, wrong use of the mind becomes madness.

Mind is there with everyone. The possibility of darkness and light both are implied in it. Mind itself is neither the enemy nor the friend. You can make it a friend you can make it an enemy. It depends on you – on you who is hidden behind the mind. If you can make the mind your instrument, your slave, the mind becomes the passage through which you can reach the ultimate If you become the slave and the mind is allowed to be the master, then this mind which has become master will lead you to ultimate anguish and darkness.

All the techniques, all the methods, all the paths of yoga, are really concerned deeply only with one problem: how to use the mind. Rightly used, mind comes to a point where it becomes no-mind. Wrongly used, mind comes to a point where it is just a chaos, many voices antagonistic to each other – contradictory, confusing, insane.

Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Chapter 3

 

Chapter #3

ONCE, WHEN THE HASIDIM WERE SEATED TOGETHER IN ALL BROTHERLINESS, PIPE IN HAND, RABBI ISRAEL JOINED THEM.

BECAUSE HE WAS SO FRIENDLY THEY ASKED HIM, 'TELL US, DEAR RABBI, HOW SHOULD WE SERVE GOD?'

HE WAS SURPRISED AT THE QUESTION, AND REPLIED, 'HOW SHOULD I KNOW?'
BUT THEN HE WENT ON TO TELL THEM THIS STORY.....

THERE WERE TWO FRIENDS OF THE KING, AND BOTH WERE PROVED GUILTY OF A CRIME. SINCE HE LOVED THEM THE KING WANTED TO SHOW THEM MERCY, BUT HE COULD NOT ACQUIT THEM BECAUSE EVEN A KING'S WORD CANNOT PREVAIL OVER THE LAW.

SO HE GAVE THIS VERDICT: A ROPE WAS TO BE STRETCHED OVER A DEEP CHASM, AND, ONE AFTER ANOTHER, THE TWO WERE TO WALK ACROSS IT. WHOEVER REACHED TO THE OTHER SIDE WAS TO BE GRANTED HIS LIFE.

IT WAS DONE AS THE KING ORDERED, AND THE FIRST OF THE FRIENDS GOT SAFELY ACROSS. THE OTHER, STILL STANDING ON THE SAME SPOT, CRIED TO HIM, 'TELL ME, FRIEND, HOW DID YOU MANAGE TO CROSS?'

THE FIRST CALLED BACK, 'I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING BUT THIS: WHENEVER I FELT MYSELF TOPPLING OVER TO ONE SIDE, I LEANED TO THE OTHER.'

EXISTENCE is paradoxical; paradox is its very core. It exists through opposites, it is a balance in the opposites. And one who learns how to balance becomes capable of knowing what life is, what existence is, what God is. The secret key is balance.

Logic is not linear, logic is dialectical. The very process of life is dialectic, a meeting of the opposites -- a conflict between the opposites and yet a meeting of the opposites. And life goes through this dialectical process: from thesis to antithesis, from antithesis to synthesis -- and then again the synthesis becomes a thesis. The whole process starts again.

If Aristotle is true then there will be only men and no women, or, only women and no men. If the world was made according to Aristotle then there will be only light and no darkness, or, only darkness and no light. That would be logical. There would be either life or death but not both.

But life is not based on Aristotle's logic, life has both. And life is really possible only because of both, because of the opposites: man and woman, yin and yang, day and night, birth and death, love and hate. Life consists of both.

This is the first thing you have to allow to sink deep into your heart -- because Aristotle is in everybody's head. The whole education system of the world believes in Aristotle -- although for the very advanced scientific minds Aristotle is out of date. He no longer applies. Science has gone beyond Aristotle because science has come closer to Existence.