'I see what I need to see'_

'I see what I need to see.'Takeshi Kitana as Zatoichi the Blind Samurai 

Man remains the same unless he changes his dimension. Somebody is an atheist; he says, 'There is no God because I cannot see him. Show me and I will believe.' And then someday he comes to have an experience, a vision, a dream in which he sees God standing there. Then he starts believing.

In the Gita, Arjuna, Krishna's disciple, goes on asking again and again, 'You go on talking about him but I cannot believe unless I see.'

Now, what is he saying? He is saying, 'Let God be objective then I will believe.' And Krishna concedes to his desire. I am not happy with that - because to concede to this desire means to concede that the objective dimension is capable of seeing God.

The story says that Krishna then revealed his reality, his vastness; he revealed God. Arjuna started trembling and shaking. He said, 'Stop! Enough! I have seen!' He saw Krishna expanding and becoming the whole universe; and in Krishna stars were moving, the sun was rising and the moon and planets and the beginning of the world and the end of the world and all life and all death was there. It was too much; he could not bear it. He said, 'Stop!' And then he came to believe.

But this belief does not change the object, this belief does not change the objective dimension. He did not believe because he could not see; now he has seen so he believes - but the God remains in the objective world, the God remains a thing. I am not happy with Krishna for doing this. It should not be done. It is conceding to a foolish disciple's desire. The disciple needs to be changed from his dimension; he should be made more subjective. But we remain the same - we go on changing forms but we remain the same.

I have heard.

The funeral was over. Still sobbing, Goldberg, the new widower, followed his late wife's sister-in-law into the waiting limousine. As the big car passed through the cemetery gates the sister-in-law was horrified by Goldberg's hand which was slowly but passionately creeping up her leg. With her body still wracked with sobs of bereavement, she screamed, 'Goldberg, you monster, you fiend, you animal! My sister is not yet cold in her grave. What is the matter with you!'

In a voice shaking with emotion, Goldberg replied, 'In my grief do I know what I am doing?'

People remain the same in their grief or in their other moods - they remain the same, they don't change the dimension.

So this is the first thing to understand: you need a shift from the objective to the subjective. Meditate more and more with closed eyes about your emotions, about your thoughts. Look deeper into the inner world, the world that is absolutely private to you. The objective is public; the subjective is private. You cannot invite anybody into your dreams, it is not possible. You cannot say to your friend, 'Tonight come into my dream,' because the dream is absolutely yours. You cannot even invite your beloved who may be sleeping just on the same bed, who may be sleeping just by your side, hand in hand. But you dream your dreams and she dreams her dreams. Dreams are private. The subjective is the private; the objective is the public, the objective is the marketplace. Many people can watch one thing, but many people cannot watch one thought, only one person can - the person to whom the thought belongs.

Remove your consciousness more and more towards the private. The poet lives a private life; the politician lives a public life. Mahatma Gandhi used to say that he didn't have any private life. That means he must have had a very poor life. A private life is a rich life. The politician's life is there to be watched by everybody: on the TV, in the newspapers, in the street, in the crowd. The politician only has a public face. When he goes home he is nobody. He loses all face.

You have to find your private face. The emphasis should be more on the private than on the public. And you should start learning how to love the private - because the private is the door to God. The public is the door to science but not to religion, not to God. The public is the door towards arithmetic, calculation, but it is not the door to ecstasy, to love. And enjoy things which are very private: music, poetry, painting. Zen insisted on calligraphy, painting, poetry, gardening - something that is absolutely private, something that you live from the in towards the out, something that rises as a wave in the innermost core of your being and spreads outwards.

The public life is just the reverse: something rises outside and faces in towards you. In a public life the original, the source, is always outside. Your centre of being is never within yourself, It is always outside. That's why a politician is always afraid of the outside - because his life depends on the outside. If the people don't vote he will be nobody.

But that doesn't make any difference to a painter or to a poet. Nobody purchased Vincent Van Gogh's paintings. During his whole life not a single painting was sold, but that didn't matter; he enjoyed himself. If they sold, good; if they did not sell, good. The real prize was not in their being sold and appreciated, the real prize was in the painter's creating of them. In that very creation he has attained his goal. In the moment of creation he becomes divine. You become God whenever you create.

You have heard it said again and again that God created the world. I tell you one thing more: whenever you create something you become a small God in your own right. If God is the creator then to be creative is the only way to reach him. Then you become a participant, then you are no more a spectator.

Van Gogh, appreciated or not, lived a tremendously beautiful life in his inner world - very colourful. The real prize is not when a painting is sold and critics appreciate it all over the world - that is just a booby prize. The real prize is when the painter is creating it, when the painter is lost in his painting, when the dancer has dissolved into his dance, when the singer has forgotten who he is and the song throbs. THERE is the real prize, THERE is the attainment.

In the outside world you depend on others. In the public life, in the political life, you depend on others, you are a slave. In the private life you start becoming a master of your own being.

Let me insist and emphasise it because I would like all of my sannyasins to be creative in some way. To me, creativity is of tremendous import. An uncreative person is not a religious person at all. I am not saying that you all have to be Van Goghs - you cannot. I am not saying you all have to be Leonardo da Vincis or Beethovens or Mozarts; I am not saying you all have to become Wagners and Picassos, Rabindranaths - no, I am not saying that. I am not saying that you have to become a world famous painter or poet or you have to win a Nobel prize - if you have that idea, again you fall into politics. The Nobel prize comes from the outside; it is a booby prize, it is not a real prize. The real prize comes from inside. And I am not saying that you are capable - all are not capable of becoming Picassos. And there is no need either, because too many Picassos would make a very monotonous world. It is good that there is only one Picassos and it is good that he has never been repeated, otherwise it would become boring.

But you all can become creators in your own way. It does not matter whether anybody comes to know about it or not, that is absolutely unimportant. You can do something out of love - then it becomes creative. You can enjoy something while you are doing it - then it becomes creative.

While I am talking to you Astha is cleaning my bathroom and my room. I enquired of her if she would like to drop this work and come to the talk. She said, 'Osho, cleaning your bathroom is enough for me.' It is a creative act, and she has chosen it out of love. And certainly she is not missing anything. Whether she listens to me or not is not the point. If she loves cleaning the bathroom, if she loves me, it is a prayer. You can be here but you may listen to me or you may not listen to me. She is not here but she has listened to me. She has understood me. Now the work itself becomes worship. Then it is creative.

I would like to remind all of my sannyasins again and again: be creative. In the past the majority of the religious people proved to be uncreative. That was a calamity, a curse. Saints were simply sitting doing nothing. That is not real religion. When real religion explodes into people's lives, suddenly much creativity explodes also. When Buddha was here a great creativity exploded. You can find proofs in Ajanta, Ellora. When Tantra was an alive religion a great creativity exploded. You can go to Puri, Kanorak, Khajuraho and see. When Zen Masters were alive they created really many new dimensions - out of small things, but very creative.

If you are uncreative it simply means that you must have practised your religion, you must have forced yourself into a certain pattern, and you have got blocked, frozen in that pattern. A religious person is flowing, streaming, river-like; seeking, exploring, always seeking and exploring the unknown, always dropping the known and going into the unknown, always choosing the unknown for the known, sacrificing the known for the unknown. And always ready. A religious man is a wanderer, a vagabond; into the innermost world he goes on wandering moving from one place to another. He wants to know all the spaces that are involved in his being.

Be more creative. Dance, and don't bother whether somebody likes your dance or not - that is not the question. If you can get dissolved into it, you are a dancer. Write poetry. There is no need even to show it to anybody. If you enjoy it, write it and burn it. Play on your flute or guitar or sitar. You must see our tabla-player, Bodhi. How meditatively he plays on his tabla! That's his meditation. He is growing: going into it, dissolving, melting. The subjective is the realm of all art and creativity. These are the two ordinary realms of being.

The third, the really religious, is the transcendental. First is the objective - the objective is the world of science, second is the subjective - the subjective is the world of art; and third is the transcendental - that which goes beyond both; is neither objective or subjective; is neither out nor in. In it, both are implied, in it both are involved but yet it is higher than both, bigger than both, beyond both. The subjective is closer to the transcendental than the objective, but remember, just by being subjective, you don't become religious. You have taken a step towards being religious, a very important step, but just by being subjective you don't become religious. You can find poets who are not religious, you can find painters who are not religious...religion is more than art, more than songs.

What is this third? First, you start looking into your thoughts. Drop the public world and move into the private: look into your dreams, your thoughts, your desires, your emotions, your moods and the climates that go on changing inside you, year in, year out. Look into it. This is the subjective. Then the last and the ultimate jump: by and by, by looking into thoughts, start looking into the looker, the witness, the one who is watching the thoughts.

First move from things to thoughts, then from thoughts to the thinker. Things are the world of science, thought is the world of art and the thinker is the world of religion. Just go on moving inwards. The first circumference around you is of things, the second of thoughts, and the third, the centre, your very being, is nothing but consciousness. It is nothing but a witnessing.

Drop things and go into thoughts; then one day thoughts also have to be dropped and then you are left alone in your purity, then you are left absolutely alone. In that aloneness is God, in that aloneness is liberation, moksha, in that aloneness is nirvana, in that aloneness for the first time you are in the real.

The objective and subjective are divided; there is a duality, a conflict, a struggle, a division. The person who is objective will miss something - he will miss the subjective. And the person who is subjective will miss something - he will miss the objective. Both will be incomplete. The scientist and the poet both are incomplete. Only the holy man is complete; only the holy man is whole. And because he is whole I call him holy.

By 'holy' I don't mean that he is virtuous, by 'holy' I mean that he is whole. Nothing is left, everything is involved. His richness is whole: the subjective and the objective both have dissolved into him. But he is not just the total of subjective and objective, he is more. The objective is without, the subjective is within and the religious is beyond. The beyond comprehends both without and within and yet is beyond.

This vision is what I call spirituality - the vision of the beyond.

A few more things. In the world of the objective, action is very important. One has to be active because only action is relevant in the world of things. If you do something, only then can you have more things; if you do something, only then can you change in the world of objectivity.

In the world of subjectivity...inaction. Doing is not important, feeling is. That's why poets become lazy. And painters - even great painters and great poets and great singers, they have bouts of activity and then again they relapse into laziness. The subjective person is more sleepy, dreamy, lazy; the objective person is active, obsessed with action. The objective person always needs to do something or other, he cannot sit alone, he cannot rest. He can fall asleep - but once he is awake he has to do something. The subjective person is inactive. It is very difficult for him to move into action. He enjoys the world of fantasy - and that is available without action. He does not have to go anywhere, he has just to close his eyes and the world of dreams opens.

The religious person is the meeting of the opposites: action in inaction, inaction in action.

He does things but he does them in such a way that he never becomes the doer. He remains a vehicle of God, the passage - what the Chinese call wu-wei, inaction in action.

Even if he is doing, he is not doing it. His doing is very playful, there is no tension in it, no anxiety, no obsession about it. And even when he is inactive he is not dull; even when he is sitting, or Lying down and resting, he is full of energy. He is not lethargic, he is radiant with energy. Because both the opposites have come to a meeting and to a higher synthesis in him, he can act as if he is in a non-doing state and he can remain in a non- doing state but still you can feel the energy, you can feel a vibe of tremendous activity around his being. Wherever he moves, he brings life to people. Just by his presence dead people become alive; just by his touch dead people are called back to life.

Like Jesus.... When Lazarus died, Jesus was called. He went to the grave where Lazarus was kept and he called out, 'Lazarus, come out!' And the dead Lazarus came out and said, 'I am here. You called me out of death. I am here.'

A religious person is active - not because he is doer, a religious person is active because he has infinite energy available. A religious person is active - not because he has to do something, because he has an obsession to do, not because he cannot relax, but because he is such a pool of energy that he has to overflow; the energy is too much and he cannot contain it.

So while sitting silently.... You can see Buddha sitting silently under the Bodhi tree but you will see energy playing around him, a great aura of energy.

A beautiful story is told about Mahavir - that wherever he moved, for miles around life would become more alive. And he was an inactive man. He would simply stand or sit under a tree, for hours, for days, but for miles life would start throbbing with a new rhythm. It is said that trees would bloom out of season; trees would start growing faster than ever; dead trees would start producing new fresh leaves. Whether it happened or not is not the point, it maybe just a story. But it is very indicative, it is very symbolic. Myths are not symbolic things, myths are very meaningful symbols. They say something.

What does this myth say? It simply says that Mahavir was such a pool of energy, such an overflowing of energy, such an overflowing of God, that wherever he was, life would move faster. A speed would happen to all the existence around him. He would not be doing anything but things would start happening.

Lao Tzu has said that the greatest religious person never does anything, but millions of things happen through him. He is never a doer but much happens through him. He simply goes on sitting and yet the impact of his being on the world of affairs is tremendous.

Nobody may ever come to know about him - he may be sitting in a cave in the Himalayas so you never know about him - but still your life will be affected by him because he will be vibrating. He will give a new energy, a new pulse to life; he will impart a new pulsation to life. You may not come to know about him but you may have been benefitted by him.

The opposites become complementaries in a religious being. The day and night meet and dissolve their conflict; the man and woman meet in the religious person and dissolve their conflict. A religious person is ARDHANARISHVAR - he is half man, half woman. He is both. He is as strong as any man can be and he is as fragile as any woman can be. He is as fragile as a flower and as strong as a sword. He is hard and he is soft and he is both together. He is a miracle, he is a mystery. Because opposites meet he goes beyond logic, his being is paradoxical. He is alive as nobody else is alive and he is dead, more dead, than the dead who are in the graveyards. He is dead in a way and alive in a way - together, simultaneously; he has known the art of dying and the art of living simultaneously.

In ordinary life with the ordinary mind everything is divided into its opposites, and there is a great attraction for meeting with the opposite: the man seeks the woman, the woman seeks the man - the yin-yang circle. In a religious man all search has stopped - the man has found the woman, the woman has found the man. In his innermost core the energy has come to a point where everything has dissolved into oneness, into non-duality, ADVAIT. All opposites become complementaries; all conflicts dissolve and become co- operation. Then you have come home, then there is no need to go anywhere, then there is nothing to be sought, nothing to be desired. This state is the state of God. God is a state, God is not an object. And God is not even a person, because God is neither objective nor subjective. God is transcendental.

If you are in the objective I will say, 'Seek the subjective - there is the God.' If you are in the subjective, I will say, 'Now go beyond. There is no God in the subjective. God is beyond.' By and by one has to go on eliminating, by and by one has to go on dropping.

God is when there is no object and no subject, when there is no thing and no thought, when there is no this world and no that world. When there is no matter and no mind, God is; God is neither matter nor mind. In God both exist. God is a tremendous paradox, absolutely illogical, beyond logic. You cannot make an image of God in wood or in stone and you cannot make an image of God in concepts and ideas. When you dissolve all images - when you have dissolved all in/out, man/woman, life/death, all dualities - then that which is left is God.

 

 

Tweet