Question_and_Answer at The Turiya Files

OSHO, YOU SAID THAT AWARENESS CREATED CENTERING AND CRYSTALLIZATION, BUT I PERSONALLY FEEL THAT AWARENESS BRINGS A FEELING OF DEEP VOID WITHIN ME. PLEASE EXPLAIN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CENTERING AND INNER VOID.

As man is, he is without a center - without a real, authentic center. He has a center, so to speak, but the center is false. He only thinks he has a center. The ego is a false center. You feel that it is there, but it is not. If you go to find it, you will not find it at all.

Bodhidharma reached China 1100 years after Buddha. He was a Buddha himself. The Emperor Wu came to receive Bodhidharma. When no one was there, he asked Bodhidharma, "I am very, very disturbed. My mind is never at ease. What can I do? Tell me. Make my mind at peace, at ease. I am in deep conflict; an inner struggle continues - so do something."

Bodhidharma said, "I can do something. Come early in the morning at four o'clock, but remember to bring your self."

The Emperor felt: "Either this man is mad or I have not understood what he is saying." He said, "Of course, I will come. I will come with my self."

Bodhidharma still insisted, "Do not forget. Bring your self with you. Otherwise, whom am I going to put at ease?"

The whole night the Emperor could not sleep. It was such a strange thing. It looked weird. What does this man mean? And then he began to feel doubtful about whether to go or not, and it was to be in the early hours, at four o'clock in the morning. And Bodhidharma had said to come alone: "Let your self only be with you; no one else." So no one could know what he was going to do, and he looked mad. It was even dangerous. But still, he was tempted. This man was really a different type of being. He attracted! He was magnetic! So the Emperor couldn't stay at home, he came.

When he was coming near, Bodhidharma said, "You have come, but where is your self?"

Wu said, "You make me puzzled. The whole night I couldn't sleep. What do you mean by 'my self'? I am here."

So Bodhidharma said, "Give me your self. I will make it silent, at peace, at ease. Close your eyes and find out where it is. Point it out to me and I will make it disappear totally, and there will be never any problem again."

So the Emperor Wu closed his eyes and sat before Bodhidharma. The morning was absolutely silent. No one was there. He could even hear his own breath; he could hear his own heartbeat.

And Bodhidharma was there constantly telling him, "Go in and find out where it is. If you cannot find it, then what can I do?" And he searched and searched and searched for hours together. Then he opened his eyes, and he was a different man.

Bodhidharma said, "If there is no self and there is void, are you disturbed now? Is someone at a dis-ease inside? Now where is the anguish you were talking about? So much talking about it, and now where is it?"

Wu said, "It is nowhere, because the person has disappeared, so how can dis-ease exist without him? I tried and tried, but it is nowhere to be found. Really, I was myself in deception. I always thought 'I' am inside. I tried to find it, and it is not there. There is simply a void - SHOONYA - an emptiness, a nothingness."

So Bodhidharma said, "Now go to your home, and whenever you feel that something is to be done with your self, first find out where it is."

The ego is a false entity. Because we have never searched for it, it seems to exist. Because we have never gone in, we go on talking about the "I". It is not there. So the first thing to be understood is that if you meditate, if you become silent, you will feel a void, because you cannot find the ego. The ego was all the furniture; now the furniture has disappeared. You are just a room - rather, a room-ness. Even the walls have disappeared. They were part of the ego. The whole structure has disappeared, so you will find a void.

This is the first step - when the ego disappears. It is a false entity; it is not there. It only appears to be, and you go on thinking that it is there. It belongs to your thinking, not to your being. It belongs to your mind, not to your existence. Because you think it is there, it is there. When you go to find it, it is not found. Then you feel the void, emptiness. Now persist in this emptiness, remain in this void.

The mind is very cunning. It can play games. If you begin to think and observe this, this voidness, if you begin to think, you will fill it again. Even if you say, "This is void," you are out of it, already out of it. The void has disappeared - you have come in. Remain with the void; remain void. Do not think. It is difficult, very frightening.

One gets dizzy. It is an abyss - an infinite abyss. You are falling down and falling down with no bottom to reach. One gets dizzy; one begins to think. The moment you think, you have found the ground again. Now you are not in the void.

If you can remain in the void without escaping it, by any thinking whatsoever, suddenly the void will also disappear, as the ego has disappeared - because, really, it is because of the ego that it looks like a void. Ego was the thing which was fulfilling. That was the furniture, and there was no void. Now the ego has disappeared; that is why you feel it as a void. This feeling of emptiness is just because something which was always there is now not there.

If you see me in this chair, then suddenly if you do not find me in the chair, the chair will look empty - not because the chair is empty, but simply because someone was there filling it and now he is no more there. So you see the void, not the chair. You see the void because the absence of something looks like an emptiness. You are still not seeing the chair. You were seeing a person there; now you are seeing the absence of the person. But the chair is still not seen. So when the ego disappears, you feel the void. This is only a beginning, because this void is also the negative part of the ego - the other aspect. This void must also disappear.

It is reported about Rinzai, a Zen Master, that when he was learning with his Teacher, the Teacher always insisted that he should attain the void, the nothingness, the shoonya. So one day he came; he had attained it. It was a long effort. To dissolve the ego is a long effort. It was a long journey - difficult, sometimes virtually impossible - but he had attained. So he came, laughing, dancing, happy in ecstasy. He fell down ar his Master's feet and said, "I have attained. Now the void is there."

The Master looked at him very unsympathetically and said, "Now you go and throw this void also. Do not bring it here. Throw this void also. Throw this nothingness, because if you have nothingness it becomes something again."

Even a void is something. If you can feel it, it is something; if you can know it, it is something; if you can observe it, it is something. Even nothing becomes something if it is in your hands.

The Master said, "Throw this void out. Only come to me when even nothingness is not there."

Rinzai wept. Why couldn't he see it himself? A void is an attainment, it is something. If you have achieved nothingness, nothingness becomes a thing. When you go deep in the void - without any thinking, without any vibration in the mind - if you remain in this, suddenly the void just disappears and then the Self is known. Then you are centered. Then you have come to the real center.

There is the false center, the absence of the false center, and then the real center. By "centering" I mean the ground, the very ground of Being. It is not your center, because you are the false center. So it is not your center. It is the center - just the center of Being. The very Existence is centered in it.

You are the false center; you will disappear. But even in your disappearance, if you begin to feel fulfilled with void, the ego has returned in a very subtle way. In a very subtle way, it has come back. It will say, "I have attained this void," so it is still there.

Do not allow it to come back. Remain in the void. Do not do anything with the void: do not even think about it, do not even feel anything about it. The void is there: be at ease; let it be there. It will disappear. It is just a negative part. The real thing has disappeared. It is just shadow. Do not catch the shadow, do not cling to the shadow, because the shadow can remain only if the real thing is nearby. Only then can the shadow remain. Ultimately the void disappears, and then there is centering. Then for the first time you are not and YOU ARE - not as you, but as pure Being; rather, as the All. And this point must be noted carefully - that it is not your center; it is the center of All.

Forget your false center. Go in and dig for it: then it dissolves. It is never found. It is not, so you cannot find it. Then a more arduous thing befalls you - you encounter the void. It is very silent. Compared to the ego world, it is very silent. You are in a deep peace. But do not be satisfied with it. It is false, because it is part of the ego. And if you feel satisfied, the ego will re-enter; it will come back. A part of it was still there. That part will bring it back again, whole. Remain with the void without any thinking.

That is just deathlike. One is dying before one's own eyes - everything dissolving in a great abyss. And soon you will disappear and only the abyss will be there - not even the knower of the abyss, not even the observer of the abyss, but just the abyss. Then you are centered - centered in the Cosmic Center: it is not your center. For the first time, you are.

Now language will have a different meaning. You are not and you are. Here, 'yes' and 'no' lose their traditional difference, their customary meaning. You are not there as you. Now you are there as the Divine - as the Cosmos itself. This is the existential centering - the centering in the Existence.

The Ultimate Alchemy Vol. 2
Chapter #2
Chapter title: Question and Answer