Become a Driftwood

THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA is known as VIA NEGATIVA - the path of negation. This attitude, this approach has to be understood.

Buddha's approach is unique. All other religions of the world are positive religions, they have a positive goal - call it God, MOKSHA, liberation, salvation, Self-realisation, but there is a goal to be achieved. And positive effort is needed on the part of the seeker. Unless you make hard effort you will not reach to the goal.

Buddha's approach is totally different, diametrically opposite. He says: You are already that which you want to become, the goal is within you, it is your own nature. You are not to achieve it. It is not in the future, it is not somewhere else. It is you right now, this very moment. But there are a few obstacles - those obstacles have to be removed.

It is not that you have to attain godhood - godhood is your nature - but there are a few obstacles which have to be removed. Once those obstacles are removed, you are that which you have always been seeking. Even when you were not aware of who you are, you were That. You cannot be other than That, you cannot be otherwise.

Obstacles have to be eliminated, dropped. So nothing else has to be added to you. The positive religion tries to add something to you: virtue, righteousness, meditation, prayer. The positive religion says you are lacking something; you have to be in search of that which you are lacking. You have to accumulate something.

Buddha's negative approach says you are not lacking anything. In fact, you are possessing too many things which are not needed. You have to drop something.

It is like this: A man goes trekking into the Himalayas. The higher you start reaching, the more you will feel the weight of the things you are carrying with you. Your luggage will become more and more heavy. The higher the altitude, the more heavy your luggage will become. You will have to drop things. If you want to reach to the highest peak, you will have to drop all.

Once you have dropped all, once you don't possess anything, once you have become a zero, a nothingness, a nobody, you have reached.

Something has to be eliminated, not added to you. Something has to be dropped, not accumulated.

When Buddha attained, somebody asked him, "What have you attained?"

He laughed. He said, "I have not attained anything - because whatsoever I have attained was always with me. On the contrary, I have lost many things. I have lost my ego. I have lost my thoughts, my mind. I have lost all that I used to feel I possessed. I have lost my body - I used to think I was the body. I have lost all that. Now I exist as pure nothingness. But this is my achievement*.

Let me explain it to you, because this is very central.

According to Buddha's approach, in the beginningless beginning of existence there was absolute sleep; existence was fast asleep, snoring, what Hindus call SUSHUPTI, a state of dreamless sleep. The whole existence was asleep in SUSHUPTI. Nothing was moving, everything was at rest - so tremendously, so utterly at rest, you can say it was not existing at all.

When you move into SUSHUPTI every night, when dreams stop, you again move into that primordial nothingness. And if in the night there are not a few moments of that primordial nothingness, you don't feel rejuvenated, you don't feel revitalized. If the whole night you dream, and turn and toss in the bed, in the morning you are more tired than you were when you went to bed. You could not dissolve, you could not lose yourself.

If you have been in SUSHUPTI, in a dreamless state, that means you moved into that beginningless beginning again. From there is energy. From there you come rested, vitalized, new. Again full of juice, full of life and zest. That, Buddha says, was the beginning; but he calls it the beginningless beginning. It was like SUSHUPTI, it was tremendously unconscious; there was no consciousness in it.

It was just like samadhi, with only one difference: in samadhi one is fully awake.

In that SUSHUPTI, in that dreamless deep sleep, there was no consciousness, not even a single flame of consciousness - a dark night. It is also a state of SATCHITANAND, but the state is unconscious.

In the morning when you become awake, then you say, "Last night was beautiful, I slept very deeply. It was so beautiful and so full of bliss." But this you say in the morning. When you were really in that sleep, you were not aware; you were absolutely unconscious. When you awake in the morning, then you look retrospectively backwards and then you recognize: "Yes, it was beautiful!"

When a person awakes in samadhi, then he recognizes that: "All my lives of the past, they were all blissful. I have been in a tremendously enchanted, magic world. I have never been miserable." Then one recognizes, but right now you cannot recognize - you are unconscious.

The primordial state is full of bliss, but there is nobody to recognize it. Trees still exist in that primordial state; mountains and the ocean and the clouds and the deserts, they still exist in that primordial consciousness. It is a state of unconsciousness.

This Buddha calls nothingness, pure nothingness, because there was no distinction, no demarcation. It was nebulous: no form, no name. It was like a dark night.

Then came the explosion. Now, scientists also talk about this explosion; they call it 'the big bang'. Then everything exploded. The nothingness disappeared and things appeared. It is still a hypothesis, even for scientists, because nobody can go back. For scientists it is a hypothesis, the most probable hypothesis at the most.

There are many theories proposed, propounded, but the 'big bang theory' is accepted generally - that out of that nothingness things exploded, like a seed explodes, becomes a tree. And in the tree then millions of seeds; and then THEY explode. A single seed can fill the whole earth with greenery. This is what explosion means.

Have you observed the fact? - such mystery... a small seed, barely visible, can explode and fill the whole earth with forests. Not only the whole earth: all the earths possible in existence. A single seed! And if you break the seed, what will you find inside it? Just nothingness, just pure nothing. Out of this nothingness, the Whole has evolved.

For scientists it is just a hypothesis, an inference. For a Buddha it is not a hypothesis - it is his experience. He has known this happening within himself. I will try to explain it to you, how one comes to know this beginningless beginning - because you cannot go back, but there is a way to go on moving ahead. And, just as everything moves in a circle, time also moves in a circle.

In the West, the concept of time is linear; time moves in a line, horizontal; it goes on and on and on. But in the East, we believe in a circular time. And the Eastern concept of time is closer to reality, because every movement is circular. The earth moves in a circle, the moon moves in a circle, the stars move in a circle. The year moves in a circle, the LIFE moves in a circle: birth, childhood, youth, old age - again birth! What you call death is again birth. Again childhood, again youth...

and the wheel goes on moving. And the year goes round and round: comes summer, and the rains, and the winter and again summer.

Everything is moving in a circle! So why should there be an exception - time?

Time also moves in a circle. One cannot go back-wards, but if you go on ahead, moving ahead, one day time starts moving in a circle. You reach to the beginningless beginning, or, now you can call it the endless end.

Buddha has known it, experienced it.

What the scientists call 'the big bang' I call 'cosmic orgasm'. And that seems to me more meaningful. 'Big bang' looks a little ugly, too technological, inhuman.

'Cosmic orgasm' - the cosmos exploded into orgasm. Millions of forms were born out of it. And it was a tremendously blissful experience, so let us call it 'cosmic orgasm'.

In that orgasm three things developed. First, the universe; what we in the East call SAT. Out of the universe developed life; what we call ANANDA. And out of life developed mind, what we call CHIT. Sat means being; ANANDA means celebrating the being - when a tree comes to bloom, it is celebrating its being.

And CHIT means consciousness - when you have become conscious about your bliss, about your celebration. These three states: SATCHITANANDA.

Man has come up to the mind. The rocks are still at the first stage: universe - they exist but they don't flower, they don't celebrate; they are closed, coiled upon themselves. Some day they will start moving, some day they will open their petals, but right now they are caved within themselves, completely closed.

Trees, animals, they have come to the next stage: life - so happy, so beautiful, so colourful. The birds go on singing, and the trees go on blooming. This is the second stage: life. The third stage, only man has reached it: the state of mind, the state of CHIT - consciousness.

Buddha says: These three are like a dream. The first, the beginningless beginning, the primordial state, is like sleep - SUSHUPTI. These three are like a dream; these three are like a drama that goes on unfolding. If you move beyond mind, if you start moving towards meditation, that is towards no-mind, again another explosion happens, but now it is no longer explosion - it is implosion.

Just as one day explosion happened and millions of things were born out of nothingness, so when implosion happens, forms, names disappear - again nothingness is born out of it. The circle is complete.

The scientists talk only about explosion, they don't talk about implosion yet - which is very illogical. Because if explosion is possible, then implosion is also possible.

A seed is thrown into the earth. It explodes. A tree is born, then on the tree again seeds are born. What is a seed now? When the seed explodes, it is a tree. When the tree implodes, it is again a seed. The seed was carrying a tree; it opened itself and became a tree. Now the tree again closes itself, caves in, becomes a small seed.

If explosion happened in the world, as scientists now trust, then the Buddhist idea of implosion is also a reality. Explosion cannot exist without implosion.

They both go together. Implosion means again mind moves into life, life moves into universe, universe moves into nothingness - then the circle is complete.

Nothingness moves into universe, universe moves into life, life moves into mind, mind again moves into life, life again into universe, universe again into nothingness... the circle is complete.

After implosion, when it has happened, when everything has again come to nothingness, now there is a difference. The first nothingness was unconscious; this second nothingness is conscious. The first was like darkness; the second is like light. The first was like night; the second is like day. The first we called SUSHUPTI; the second we will call JAGRITI - awareness, fully awake.

This is the whole circle. The first scientists call 'the big bang theory' because there was so much explosion and so much noise. It was a big bang. Just a moment before everything was silent, there was no noise, no sound, and after one moment, when the existence exploded, there was so much sound and so much noise. All sorts of noises started.

What happens when the explosion disappears into an implosion? The soundless sound. Now there is no longer any noise. Again everything is silent. This is what Zen calls the sound of one hand clapping. This is what Hindus have called ANAHATNADA, OMKAR - the soundless sound.

The first Hindus have called NADAVISPHOT - big bang, the sound exploded.

And the second is again when the sound moves into silence; the story is complete. Science is still clinging to the half story; the other half is missing. And one who watches this whole play - from SUSHUPTI, dark night of the soul, to dream, and from dream to awareness - the one who watches it all is the witness:

the fourth state we call TURIYA - the one who witnesses all. That one known, you become a Buddha; that one known, experienced, you become Arhat - you have attained.

BUT THE WHOLE POINT TO BE UNDERSTOOD IS THIS: that ALL the time, when you are asleep or dreaming or awake, you are That. Sometimes not aware, sometimes aware - that is the only difference - but your nature remains the same.

T.S. Eliot has written a few beautiful lines:

WE SHALL NOT CEASE FROM EXPLORATION AND THE END OF ALL OUR EXPLORING WILL BE TO ARRIVE WHERE WE STARTED AND KNOW THE PLACE FOR THE FIRST TIME.

THROUGH THE UNKNOWN, REMEMBERED GATE WHEN THE LAST OF EARTH LEFT TO DISCOVER IS THAT WHICH WAS THE BEGINNING; AT THE SOURCE OF THE LONGEST RIVER THE VOICE OF THE HIDDEN WATERFALL AND THE CHILDREN IN THE APPLE-TREE NOT KNOWN, BECAUSE NOT LOOKED FOR BUT HEARD, HALF-HEARD, IN THE STILLNESS BETWEEN TWO WAVES OF THE SEA.

QUICK NOW, HERE, NOW, ALWAYS - A CONDITION OF COMPLETE SIMPLICITY COSTING NOT LESS THAN EVERYTHING.....

A CONDITION OF COMPLETE SIMPLICITY - UTTER SIMPLICITY - COSTING NOT LESS THAN EVERYTHING.... This is the meaning of Buddha's renunciation, his path of VIA NEGATIVA. You have to come to the point from where you started. You have to know that which you are already. You have to achieve that which is already achieved. You have to achieve that which, in the nature of things, CANNOT be lost; there is no way to lose contact with it. At the most we can become unconscious about it.

Religion means becoming conscious of that which you are. It is not a search for something new; it is just an effort to know that which has always been there, is eternal. From the beginningless beginning to the endless end it is always there.

Because the path is negative, there are a few difficulties about it. It is very difficult to be attracted to Buddhism, because ordinarily the mind wants something positive to cling to, the mind wants something to achieve - and Buddha says there is nothing to achieve, rather, on the contrary, you have to lose something. Just the idea of losing something is very unappealing, because our whole concept is of having more and more and more. And Buddha says HAVING is the problem. The more you have, the less you are; because the more you have, the less you can recognize yourself - you are lost.

Your emptiness, your space is covered too much by things. A rich man is very poor - poor because he has no space left, poor because everything is occupied, poor because he does not know any emptiness in his being. And through emptiness you have the glimpses of the primordial and the ultimate - and they are both the same.

It is very difficult to be attracted to Buddhism. Only very, very rare people who have a quality of tremendous intelligence can be attracted to it. It cannot become a mass religion. And when it became, it became only when it lost all its originality, when it compromised with the masses.

In India Buddhism disappeared, because the followers of Buddha insisted for its purity. There are people who think that it is because Hindu philosophers and Hindu mystics refuted Buddhism, that's why Buddhism disappeared from India - that is wrong. It cannot be refuted. Nobody has ever refuted it. There is no possibility of refuting it, because in the first place it is not based on logic.

If something is based on logic, you can destroy it by logic. If something is based on logical proof, you can refute it. Buddhism is not based on logic at all. It is based on experience - you cannot refute it. It is very existential. It does not believe in any metaphysics - how can you refute it? And it never asserts anything about any concept. It simply describes the innermost experience. It has no philosophy so philosophers cannot refute it.

But this is true, that Buddhism disappeared from India. The cause of its disappearance, the basic cause is: Buddha and his followers insisted for its purity. The very insistence for its purity became an unbridgeable gap. The masses could not understand it - only very rare people, very, very cultured, intelligent, aristocratic, few, a chosen few could understand it, what Buddha means. And those who understood it, in their very understanding they were transformed. But for the masses it was meaningless. It lost its hold on the masses.

In China it succeeded. In Tibet, in Ceylon, in Burma, in Thailand, in Japan, it succeeded - because the missionaries, the Buddhist missionaries who went out of India, seeing what had happened in India, became very compromising, they compromised. They started talking in the positive language. They started talking about achievement, bliss, heaven - from the back door they brought everything that Buddha had denied.

Again the masses were happy. The whole of China, the whole of Asia was converted to Buddhism - except India. In India they tried to give just the pure, without any compromise; that was not possible. In China, Buddhism became a mass religion, but then it lost its truth.

Let me tell you one anecdote:

A junior devil has been sent to earth to look around and see how things are progressing. He quickly returns to hell, horrified, and obtains an interview with Beelzebub, the chief devil himself.

"Sir," he sputters, "something awful has happened! There is a man with a beard walking around on earth, speaking Truth, and people are beginning to listen to him. Something has to be done immediately."

Beelzebub smiles pleasantly, puffing on his pipe but making no comment.

"Sir! You don't realise the seriousness of the situation," continues the distraught junior devil. "Pretty soon all will be lost!"

Beelzebub removes his pipe slowly, taps it out on the ashtray, and sits back in his swivel-chair, hands behind his head.

"Don't worry, son," he counsels. "We will let it go on a little longer and, when it has progressed far enough, we will step in and help them to organize!"

And once a religion is organized, it is dead - because you can organize a religion only when you compromise with the masses. You can organize a religion only when you follow the desires of the common mass. You can organize a religion only when you are ready to make it a politics and you are ready to lose its religiousness.

A religion can be organized only when it is no more a religion. That's to say: a religion cannot be organized as religion. Organized, it is no more religion. A religion basically remains unorganized, remains a little chaotic, remains a little disorderly - because religion is freedom.

Now the sutras: The Buddha said:

"THOSE WHO ARE FOLLOWING THE WAY SHOULD BEHAVE LIKE A PIECE OF TIMBER WHICH IS DRIFTING ALONG A STREAM. IF THE LOG IS NEITHER HELD BY THE BANKS, NOR SEIZED BY MEN, NOR OBSTRUCTED BY THE GODS, NOR KEPT IN THE WHIRLPOOL, NOR ITSELF GOES TO DECAY, I ASSURE YOU THAT THIS LOG WILL FINALLY REACH THE OCEAN."

A VERY SIGNIFICANT SUTRA. The first thing Buddha says: Surrender! The most basic thing is: surrender to reality. The more you fight, the more you are in conflict with it, the more you will create obstructions. The more you fight with reality, the more you will be a loser. Of course, through fighting you can attain to the ego, you can become a very strong ego, but your ego will be the hindrance.

"THOSE WHO ARE FOLLOWING THE WAY SHOULD BEHAVE LIKE A PIECE OF TIMBER WHICH IS DRIFTING ALONG A STREAM."

They should be completely surrendered to the river of life, completely surrendered to the river of existence. In deep surrender, the ego disappears. And when the ego is not there, for the first time you become aware of that which has always been there.

The ego functions as a blindfold on your eyes. The ego keeps you blind; it does not allow you to see the truth. It creates too much smoke and the flame tends to be lost in it. The ego is like too many dark clouds around the sun - the sun gets lost. Not that those clouds can destroy the sun, but they can hide it.

"THOSE WHO ARE FOLLOWING THE WAY SHOULD BEHAVE LIKE A PIECE OF TIMBER...'

... they should become driftwood. Have you watched a piece of timber moving in the river? - with no idea of its own, not even trying to reach anywhere, not even knowing where this river is going. If it moves north, the timber moves north. If it moves south, the timber moves south. The timber is totally in tune with the river.

This tuning with the river is what surrender is all about.

But the idea of becoming a driftwood does not appeal. People come to me and they say: "Help us, Osho, to have more will-power. Help us to become more self- confident. Why are we missing will-power? How can we have a stronger will?"

Everybody - if you watch inside yourself you will find the same desire hidden there: how to have more will-power. Everybody wants to become omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent; everybody wants to become powerful. Somebody wants to become powerful through having more money; of course, money brings power. Somebody wants to have power by becoming a prime minister or a president of a country; of course, politics brings power. Somebody wants to become powerful by becoming virtuous, because virtue brings respectability.

Somebody wants to become powerful by becoming religious, because religion gives you a halo of power, of divine forces. Somebody wants to gain power by becoming more knowledgeable; knowledge IS power. But it seems that everybody wants to be powerful; this seems to be the ordinary desire of the human mind.

And Buddha says: Become a driftwood. What does he mean? What does he want to convey? He is saying: Drop this idea of becoming powerful. That is your hindrance. That's why you have become powerless - the very idea that "I should become powerful" proves nothing but your impotence. All impotent people want to become omnipotent; they would like to have all the power there is in their hands - but why? Ego is an illness, a megalomania.

Buddha says: Become a driftwood - powerless, helpless. Watch timber going down the stream: how helpless, no struggle, no conflict, simply cooperates. In fact, to say 'cooperates' is also not right. The driftwood is not there in any ego sense, so there is no point in saying it cooperates. It has no conflict, it has no cooperation. It is simply not there. Only the river is there. The timber is completely surrendered.

This is how a disciple should be. And when somebody becomes so much surrendered, Buddha says he has become a SROTAAPANNA. 'Srotaapanna'

means one who has entered the stream.

In the East, the concept of surrender has been developed very minutely, in details. But this example of a driftwood is almost perfect; you cannot improve upon it. Sometimes, sitting by the side of the river, watch timber flowing down.

See how peacefully, how relaxed how very trusting the driftwood is. No doubt. If the river is going south, it must be good to go to the south. None of its own desire, no private goal - "the river's goal is my goal." The river is already going towards the ocean. The river is going to dissolve into the vast infinity of the ocean. If you can surrender to it, that will be enough.

Coming to a Master and surrendering to a Master is nothing but entering into the stream. The Master is one who is surrendered to the river of existence. It is difficult for you to see the river of existence, it is very invisible. It is not material, it is very immaterial. It is difficult to hold it in your hands, but when you stand by the side of a Buddha at least you can hold Buddha's hand.

And he has become a driftwood. He is floating in the river. You cannot see the river right now; you don't have that much refined consciousness yet. Your eyes are not yet ready to see that river. But you can see Buddha, you can hold his hand. You can see Christ, you can hold his hand.

Buddha is surrendered to the infinite river of life - you can at least take courage and be surrendered to Buddha. By surrendering to Buddha you will be surrendering to the river to which Buddha is surrendered. A Master is just a midway passage, a door.

That's why Jesus goes on saying again and again "I am the door." Jesus is reported to have said: "Nobody achieves unless he passes through me."

Christians have misinterpreted it. They think nobody reaches to God unless one follows Christ. That is not the meaning. When Jesus says: "Nobody reaches unless he passes through me," he is saying, "unless he passes through one who has already attained." He is not talking about Jesus the son of Mary and Joseph; he is talking about Christ - not about Jesus. He is talking about a state of consciousness.

'Christ' is the name of a state of consciousness. 'Buddha' is also a name for a state of consciousness. When somebody is enlightened, he is no more - he is just a door. If you surrender to him, you will be able to surrender in a roundabout way, in an indirect way, to the stream of life itself.

To become a disciple means to be ready to float with the Master. And if you can float with a man, with a Master, you will start enjoying, you will start celebrating - because ALL anxiety will disappear, all anguish will disappear. And then you will be ready to surrender totally.

First a little taste is needed. That taste can come through a Master - the taste of Tao, the taste of Dhamma, the taste of the Way.

"THOSE WHO ARE FOLLOWING THE WAY SHOULD BEHAVE LIKE A PIECE OF TIMBER WHICH IS DRIFTING ALONG A STREAM. IF THE LOG IS NEITHER HELD BY THE BANKS..."

NOW, BUDDHA SAYS, A FEW THINGS HAVE TO BE REMEMBERED. You should surrender, surrender should be total, but there are a few obstacles which have to be continuously watched.

"IF THE LOG IS NEITHER HELD BY THE BANKS, NOR SEIZED BY MEN, NOR OBSTRUCTED BY THE GODS, NOR KEPT IN THE WHIRLPOOL, NOR ITSELF GOES TO DECAY, I ASSURE YOU THAT THIS LOG WILL FINALLY REACH THE OCEAN."

Now, you can start clinging to the Master. Rather than surrendering you can start clinging - and both look alike, but the difference is vast. To cling to a Master is not surrendering to him. To cling to a Master means you are still clinging to your ego, because all clinging is of the ego.

Clinging is of the ego. To what you cling is immaterial. If you cling then you are trying to save yourself. I watch it. If I say to somebody to 'do this', if it is just according to HIS desire he says, "Osho, I am surrendered to you. Whatsoever you say I will do." And if it is not according to his desire, then he never says, "I am surrendered to you.' Then he says, "It is difficult." And then he brings a thousand and one reasons why he cannot do it. Now he is playing a game with himself.

You cannot deceive me; you can only go on deceiving yourself. When it fits with your desire, then you say, "I am surrendered to you - whatsoever you say."

When it does not fit your desire, then you completely forget about surrender. But the real question arises only when it doesn't fit with your desire. If you can say yes then too when your ordinary mind goes on saying no, then there is no clinging, then it is real surrender. Otherwise, you can hide behind the Master - and that hiding itself can become a protection, a security.

A Master is a danger. A Master is insecurity personified. A Master is an adventure.

Buddha says:

"I CAN ASSURE YOU THAT THIS LOG WILL FINALLY REACH THE OCEAN - ONLY IF IT IS NOT HELD BY THE BANKS, NOR SEIZED BY MEN, NOR OBSTRUCTED BY THE GODS."

Buddha does not believe in any gods. He says people who believe in gods are only obstructed by their ideas; their very idea of God becomes their obstruction.

If somebody is obstructed by philosophies dogmas, words, theologies....

For example, a young woman came just two, three days ago, and she said to me, "I love you, Osho, but I am a disciple of Christ. You have helped me tremendously. You have strengthened my religion: whatsoever I used to believe, now I believe more deeply. You have helped me tremendously. I have come to give you my thanks."

Now, I am not here to strengthen your religion. I am not here to fulfil your philosophies. If you think that I am strengthening your religion, then you must be hearing something else than what I am saying.

Yes, I can bring you close to Christ, but the only way is if you go through me - there is no other way. If you think you already know Christ, if you think that your Christ is the right Christ, then Christ will become the barrier. How can you interpret Christ? Two thousand years have passed, two thousand years of misinterpretations are there; thousands of treatises, thousands of interpretations - - how can you interpret Christ now? Those interpretations will never allow you.

A Protestant has a different idea of Christ; a Catholic again a different idea of Christ; a Mohammedan has a totally different idea of Christ. From where will you get your idea? Those ideas will be from the past. You will not attain to Christ - because Christ is not a person who happened two thousand years before.

Christ is a state of consciousness which is always available for those who really want to seek.

I say to you: My consciousness is a state of Christ. If you listen to me and still you think that I am fulfilling YOUR idea of Christ, you are missing me. If you have understood what I am saying, then you will be able to see Christ in me - IMMEDIATELY. Christ will become a presence - HERENOW. It has nothing to do with the Christ who happened two thousand years ago. That was one man, Jesus, coming to the state of Christhood. Here is another man who has come to the same state.

Now, you come and listen to me and you think I am here fulfilling your idea of Christ? Your idea is bound to be your idea. It cannot be bigger than you, it cannot be higher than you. It will be as foolish as you are. It will be as idiotic as you are. It will be as dull and stupid as you are. It will be as ignorant as YOU are.

Your idea is, of course, bound to be YOUR idea.

I am not here fulfilling your ideas. I am not helping you to become better Christians and better Hindus and better Mohammedans. I am trying to drop all obstacles from your path so you can become that which you are. If you can flower to your totality, you will be a Christ, you will be a Buddha.

But obstacles are there, Buddha says. Sometimes the banks. Sometimes men around you. Sometimes the gods, the philosophies, theologies. Sometimes your mind's own whirlpool. And sometimes you yourself can go to decay.

If you are not alert and intelligent, you are already decaying, you are already dying. Every day your intelligence becomes more and more dull. Watch a child:

how intelligent! how fresh! And watch an old man: how dull, rigid, dead! Every moment intelligence is slipping by, life is getting out of your hands.

So Buddha says these things have to be remembered. If these things are remembered, and you are not caught by anything, just surrender to the stream and the stream will take you to the ocean.

"IF MONKS WALKING ON THE WAY ARE NEITHER TEMPTED BY THE PASSIONS, NOR LED ASTRAY BY SOME EVIL INFLUENCES, BUT STEADILY PURSUE THEIR COURSE FOR NIRVANA, I ASSURE YOU THAT THESE MONKS WILL FINALLY ATTAIN ENLIGHTENMENT."

IF MONKS WALKING ON THE WAY ARE NEITHER TEMPTED BY THE PASSIONS..." because the passions are of the body, the passions are of the senses.

They are very stupid!

People come to me and they say, "What to do, Osho? I go on eating too much, I go on stuffing myself - I cannot stop! The whole day I am thinking about food."

Now the person who is saying this is simply saying that he has lost all intelligence. Food is needed, but food is not the goal. You need food to exist, but there are many people who exist only to eat more and more and more.

Somebody is continuously obsessed with sex. Nothing is wrong with sex, but obsession is always wrong. With what you are obsessed is not the question - obsession is wrong, because then it starts draining your energy. Then you are continuously moving in a whirlpool of your own making, and you go on round and round and round, and you waste your energy.

And one day suddenly you find death has come and you have not lived at all, you have not known even what life is. You have been alive and yet you have not known what life is. You have been here and yet you don't know who you are.

What a wastage! And what a disrespectful way of living! I call it sacrilege against God.

It is good to eat, it is good to love, but if you are eating twenty-four hours a day you are mad. There is a balance. When the balance is lost then you are falling below human standards.

"IF MONKS WALKING ON THE WAY ARE NEITHER TEMPTED BY THE PASSIONS..."

Temptation is there - and it will be greater when you start walking on the path.

Ordinarily it may not be so, but when you start walking on the path, the body will struggle. That's how it happens.

People who have come to meditate here, they were never aware that they were obsessed with food. Meditating, suddenly one day, a great obsession arises about food. They feel continuously hungry; they are surprised because it has never been so. What has happened? Out of meditation? Yes, it can happen out of meditation, because when you are moving in meditation the body starts feeling you are going distant, you are going away. The body starts tempting you. The body will not allow you to become a master.

The body has remained master for many, many lives; you have been a slave.

Now, suddenly you are trying to change the whole state: you are trying to make the slave the master, and the master the slave. You are trying to stand on your head - to the body it looks exactly like that, that you are turning things upside down. The body revolts, the body fights, the body resists. The body says, "I will not allow you so easily."

The mind starts fighting! When the body starts fighting you will feel a great obsession for food arising in you. And when the mind starts fighting, you will feel a great obsession with sex arising in you. Sex and food, these two are going to be the problems. These are the two basic passions.

The body lives out of food. When you start moving in meditation the body wants more food to become more strong so it can fight you more. The body wants all strength now, so that it can resist the aggression that has come upon it. The effort that you are making to conquer it, to become a master of it, has to be destroyed.

The body needs all energy that is possible. The body becomes mad in eating.

The body survives because of food, and when the survival is at stake the body starts eating madly. The mind exists through sex. Why does the mind exist through sex? Because the mind exists by projecting in the future; the mind is a projection in the future. Let me explain it to you.

You are a projection of your mother's and father's sexuality. Your children will be your projection in the future. If you don't eat you will die. If you drop sexuality your children will never be born. So two things are clear: if you drop sexuality, nothing is at stake as far as you are concerned; you will not die by dropping sexuality. Nobody has ever been heard to die by becoming celibate.

You can live perfectly well. Only if you drop food you will die - within three months, at the most you can survive three months if you are perfectly healthy, then you will die. Dropping food will be death to you. Dropping sex has nothing to do with you. Maybe your children will never be born; that will be a death to them - death before they are even born - but not death to you.

Through sex the race survives; through food, the individual. So the body is concerned only with food. This body is concerned only with food, but your mind is concerned with sex - because only through sex, the mind thinks, will it have a sort of immortality. You will die, that seems certain. You cannot deceive - everybody some day is dying. And every time the bell tolls it tolls for thee. Every time death happens, you become shaken: your own death is coming close by. It WILL come. It is only a question of time, but it is to come; there is no way to escape from it. And wherever you escape to, you will find it waiting for you.

I have heard a very famous story, a Sufi story:

A king dreamt. In the night in his dream he saw Death. He became afraid. He asked, "What is the matter? Why are you making me so frightened?"

Death said, "I have come to tell you that tomorrow by sunset I am coming, so get ready. It is just out of compassion so that you can prepare."

The king was so shocked, his sleep was broken. It was the middle of the night; he called his ministers and he said, "Find people who can interpret the dream, because time is short. Maybe it is true!"

Then the interpreters came, but as interpreters always have been, they were great scholars. They brought many big books and they started discussing and disputing and arguing. And the sun started rising, and it was morning. And an old man who was a very trusted servant to the king, he came to the king and he whispered in his ear, "Don't be foolish! These people will quarrel for ever and ever, and they will never come to any conclusion."

Now, everybody was trying that HIS interpretation was right, and the king was more confused than ever. So he asked the old man, "Then what am I supposed to do?"

He said, "Let them continue their discussions. They are not going to conclude so soon - and the sun will be setting, because once it has risen the sunset is not very far. Rather, take my advice and escape - at least escape from this palace. Be somewhere else! By the evening reach somewhere as far away as possible."

The logic looked right. The king had a very fast horse, the fastest in the world.

He rushed, he escaped. Hundreds of miles he passed. By the time he reached a certain town the sun was just about to set. He was very happy. He patted his horse and he said, "You did well. We have come very far."

And when he was patting his horse, suddenly he felt somebody was standing behind him. He looked back - the same shadow of Death. And Death started laughing. And the king said, "What is the matter? Why are you laughing?"

Death said, "I was worried because you were destined to die under THIS tree - and I was worried how you would manage to reach.

Your horse is really great! It did well. Let me also pat your horse. That's why I came in your dream: I wanted you to escape from the palace because I was very worried how it would happen, how you would be able to reach. The place looked so far away, and only one day was left. But your horse did well, you have come in time."

Wherever you go you will find death waiting for you. In all the directions death is waiting. In all the places death is waiting. So, that cannot be avoided - then mind starts imagining some way to avoid it.

First it spins philosophies that "the soul is immortal," that "the body will die - I am not going to die." You are even more fragile than the body. This ego that thinks "I will not die" is more flimsy, more dreamlike than the body. The body is at least real; this ego is absolutely unreal. So you spin philosophies: "The soul will never die - I will remain in heaven, in paradise, in MOKSHA." But deep down you know that these are just words, they don't satisfy.

Then you find some other way: to earn money, make a great monument, a great palace - do something historical, leave a place in history! But that too seems to be meaningless. In such a big history, even if you make all the efforts you will become only a footnote, nothing much. And what is the point of becoming a footnote in a history book? You will be gone all the same; whether people remember you or not does not matter. In fact, who bothers to remember? Ask school children who have to read history: the great kings... and they must have made great effort somehow to enter into the history books, and now children are just not bothered at all. They condemn. They are not happy that these great kings existed. They would have been more happy if nobody had existed and there was no history to be read and crammed. So what is the point?

Then the mind has a very subtle idea. The idea is: "I will die but my children can live; my child will be my representative. He will live and somehow, deep down in him; I will live, because he will be my extension." It will be your sex cell that will live in your child - in your son, in your daughter. Of course, then sons became more important, because the daughter will move into somebody else's life-stream, and the son will continue your life-stream. The son became very important; he will be your continuity. And the mind starts getting obsessed with sex, goes mad with sex.

Whenever you come closer to meditation, these two things are going to happen:

you will start stuffing yourself with food and you will start stuffing yourself with sexuality - and you will start becoming a maniac.

Buddha says:

"IF MONKS WALKING ON THE WAY ARE NEITHER TEMPTED BY THE PASSIONS, NOR LED ASTRAY BY SOME EVIL INFLUENCES, BUT STEADILY PURSUE THEIR COURSE FOR NIRVANA, I ASSURE YOU THAT THESE MONKS WILL FINALLY ATTAIN ENLIGHTENMENT" You have to be alert not to be distracted by your passions, not to be distracted from the Way, not to be distracted from your meditation. Whatsoever the cause of distraction, it has to be avoided. You have to bring your energy again and again to your innermost core. You have to make yourself again and again relaxed, surrendered, non-tense.

THE BUDDHA SAID:

"RELY NOT UPON YOUR OWN WILL. YOUR OWN WILL IS NOT TRUSTWORTHY. GUARD YOURSELVES AGAINST SENSUALISM, FOR IT SURELY LEADS TO THE PATH OF EVIL. YOUR OWN WILL BECOMES TRUSTWORTHY ONLY WHEN YOU HAVE ATTAINED ARHATSHIP."

THIS IS A VERY SIGNIFICANT STATEMENT. Buddha never said that you need a Master, but in a subtle way he has to concede it - because a Master IS needed.

Buddha was against Masters, because the country was so cheated, exploited in the name of Guru-disciple relationship. There were so many charlatans and frauds - there have always been and there will always be. And Buddha was very much worried about it, that people were being exploited, so he said there is no need for anyone to become anybody's disciple. But how can he avoid a very basic thing? There may be ninety-nine percent frauds - that doesn't matter. Even if one right Master exists, he can be of tremendous help.

So in a very indirect way, in a roundabout way, Buddha concedes. He says:

"RELY NOT UPON YOUR OWN WILL." He says: If you rely upon your own will you will never reach anywhere. Your own will is so weak. Your own will is so unintelligent. Your own will is so divided into itself. You don't have one will; you have many wills in you. You are a crowd!

Gurdjieff used to say you don't have one 'I', you have many small 'I's'. And those 'I's' go on changing. For a few minutes one I becomes the sovereign, and then it is thrown out of power; another I becomes the sovereign. And you can watch it! It is a simple fact. It has nothing to do with any theory.

You love a person, and you are so loving. One I dominates: the I that loves. Then something goes wrong and you hate the person - in a single moment love has turned into hatred. Now you want to destroy the person - at least, you start thinking how to destroy the person. Now the hatred has come in: another I which is totally different is on the throne.

You are happy, you have another I. You are unhappy, again... it goes on changing. Twenty-four hours, day in, day out, your I's go on changing. You don't have one I.

That's why it happens that you can decide tonight: "Tomorrow morning I will get up at three o'clock; whatsoever happens I am going to get up." You fix the alarm and at three o'clock you stop the alarm and you are annoyed by the alarm. And you think, "One day - what does it matter? Tomorrow...." and you go to sleep.

And again when you get up at eight o'clock in the morning you are angry at yourself. You say, "How could it happen? I had DECIDED to get up. How did I continue to sleep?"

These are two different I's: the one I that decided and the one I that was annoyed with the alarm are different I's. Maybe the first I is again back in the morning and repents. You become angry and then you repent: these are two different I's - they never meet! They don't know what the other is doing. The I that creates anger goes on creating anger, and the I that repents goes on repenting - and you never change.

Gurdjieff used to say that unless you have a permanent crystallized I you should not trust yourself. You are not one, you are a crowd: you are polypsychic.

That's what Buddha says: "RELY NOT UPON YOUR OWN WILL." Then on whom to rely? Rely on somebody who has a will, who has an integral I, who has attained, who has become one in his being, is no longer divided, who is really an individual.

"RELY NOT UPON YOUR OWN WILL. YOUR OWN WILL IS NOT TRUSTWORTHY. GUARD YOURSELVES AGAINST SENSUALISM, FOR IT SURELY LEADS TO THE PATH OF EVIL. YOUR OWN WILL BECOMES TRUSTWORTHY ONLY WHEN YOU HAVE ATTAINED ARHATSHIP."

When you have come to know who you are, when you have become a realised soul, when the enlightenment has happened, then your I becomes trustworthy - never before it. But then there is no point. Then you have come home. It is of no use now. When there was need it was not there. So you need somebody to whom you can surrender, you need somebody with whom trust can arise in you. That is the whole relationship of a Master and a disciple.

The disciple has yet no will of his own, and the Master has. The disciple is a crowd and the Master is one unity. The disciple surrenders. He says, "I cannot trust myself, hence I will trust you." Trusting the Master, by and by, the disciple's crowd inside disappears.

That's why I say that when I tell you to do something and you want to do it, and you do it, it is meaningless - because it is still according to your I, your will.

When I say to do something, and it is against you, AND you surrender and you say yes, then you are moving, then you are growing, then you are becoming mature. Then you are coming out of the mess that you have been up to now.

Only by saying no to your mind do you say yes to the Master.

Many times I simply say that which you would like, because I don't see that you will be able to do that which I like. I have to persuade you slowly. You are not ready to take a sudden jump. First I say change your clothes, then I start changing your body. Then I start changing your mind.

People come to me and they say, "Why should we change clothes? What is the point?" They are not even ready to change their clothes; more cannot be expected of them. They say they are ready to change their souls, but they are not ready to change their clothes - look at the absurdity of it. But with the soul there is one thing: it is invisible, so nobody knows.

But I can see your soul, I can see where you are standing and what you are talking about; I can see through your rationalizations. You say, "What is there in clothes?" but that is not the question. I also know there is nothing in the clothes, but still I say, "change." I would like you to do something according to me, not according to you. That's a beginning.

Then, by and by, first I take hold of your finger, then your hand - mm? - then of your totality. You say, "Why are you holding my finger? What is the point of holding my finger?" I know what the point is - that is the beginning. Very slowly I have to go. If you are ready then there is no need to go slow, then I can also go in a sudden leap, but people are not ready.

Buddha says:

"RELY NOT UPON YOUR OWN WILL. YOUR WILL IS NOT TRUSTWORTHY."

Find out a person in whose presence you feel something has happened. Find out a person in whose presence you feel a fragrance of the Divine, in whose presence you feel a coolness, in whose presence you feel love, compassion, in whose presence you feel a silence - unknown, unexperienced, but it surrounds you, overwhelms you. Then surrender to that person. Then, by and by, he will bring you to the point where surrender will not be needed - you will realise your own innermost core of being, you will become an Arhat. The Arhat is the final stage of enlightenment.

You become yourself only when all the selves that you have been carrying all along are dissolved. You become yourself only when there is really no self left but a pure nothingness. Then the circle is complete. You have come to the ultimate nothingness, fully aware. You have become a witness of the whole play of life, existence, consciousness.

This state IS possible if you don't create obstacles. This state is certainly possible if you avoid obstacles. I can also assure you that if you become a driftwood and don't cling to the banks, and don't get attached to whirlpools, and don't start decaying in your unawareness, you are sure, absolutely sure, to reach the ocean.

That ocean is the goal. We come from that ocean and we have to reach to that ocean. The beginning is the end - and when the circle is complete there is perfection, there is wholeness, there is bliss and benediction.