Of the stillest hour

The moment comes in every mystic's life when he feels that he is a failure - a failure because he cannot reach human beings. Not that he is not trying hard, but there are so many hurdles and so many obstacles to reaching human beings.

First, the experience of the mystic is attained in absolute solitude and silence. It needs great articulateness to bring that silence into words, to bring that music into mundane language. Much of the truth is lost in transforming silence into sound. There begins the failure of the mystic.

And then the people who are hearing him are not silent. They are full of prejudices, of their own thoughts - although those thoughts are just rubbish, because they have not been discovered by themselves. They have only borrowed them from others. But they cling to those thoughts as if they are great treasures. So when they hear a mystic talking to them, they don't hear what he says, they hear what their prejudices allow them to hear. There comes the great failure.

They think they have heard the mystic, but they are absolutely deaf and blind - they have been hearing only their own thoughts, seeing only their own dreams. They have not allowed the mystic the space, the silence, the consciousness to reach to their hearts. They have interpreted him, and all their interpretations are distortions.

In these moments of failure, the mystic has only one way, and that is to go back to his solitude again, go back to his own innermost core, to find some better ways, some better words, some better devices, so that he can communicate. He is burdened with a truth and he wants to share it, but nobody is ready to hear him.

In the solitude he polishes, gives last touches to his words, to his poetry, to his song; he drops all that which has been misunderstood before, and tries again from different angles. Perhaps from a different angle it may be possible to stir the longing in human beings which is lying dormant: the longing to transcend themselves, the longing to grow up, the longing to give birth to the superman.

It is in such a moment that these words have been spoken. Zarathustra wants to depart from his disciples, to go again into solitude. His effort to be understood has not been a success. He has tried his best, he has used the simplest words, the clearest concepts, but the mind is so full of prejudices, it screens everything that goes in.

The scientists have found a very shocking phenomenon: for centuries all our senses have been thought to be doors and windows through which existence can enter into us, but the latest research shows that rather than being windows and doors, our senses have been functioning as censors; and the percentage that they censor is unimaginable - ninety-eight percent! What you see is only two percent of reality; ninety-eight percent has been blocked by your senses. What you hear is only two percent; ninety-eight percent has been blocked by your mind.

Certainly a man like Zarathustra will be able to see that he is going round and round you, but he is not reaching your heart. All doors are closed; no windows are open.

Before he departs again into solitude, to go deeper into himself and work out something more helpful for communion, he talks first with himself - it is a monologue - and then he departs from his disciples. Because it is a monologue, it is even more important than any dialogue, because he can say exactly what he wants to say - he is talking to himself. The moment you talk to somebody else, you have to take him into consideration, and that pollutes everything, contaminates everything.

Zarathustra tells his disciples he must go back into solitude again, although he does so reluctantly, because the evening before, his "stillest hour" had spoken to him. What is this "stillest hour?" When he was absolutely silent and alone, he heard his own still, small voice. He recounts what happened.

I TELL YOU THIS IN A PARABLE: YESTERDAY, AT THE STILLEST HOUR, THE GROUND SEEMED TO GIVE WAY: MY DREAM BEGAN. You can see: just to be understood by his disciples, he is using words which are not exactly true. He is saying, I TELL YOU THIS IN A PARABLE. It is NOT a parable; it is something that has actually happened to him, but they will not be able to conceive of its happening. But as a parable, of course, they will be ready to listen to it.

YESTERDAY, AT THE STILLEST HOUR, THE GROUND SEEMED TO GIVE WAY: MY DREAM BEGAN. He does not say that it was an authentic experience - that would make them cautious.

He wants them to be relaxed, so something can penetrate into their beings. He says, "It was just a dream."

Have you ever watched? - when somebody tells a parable or a dream, your mind is more open to listen to it. After all, it is a dream - it is not going to disturb you. After all, it is only a parable, fictitious. You read fiction with a more open mind than you ever hear any mystic - because to hear the mystic is dangerous. To hear the mystic means to get ready for a pilgrimage. To hear a mystic exactly means to go through a transformation. But fiction is entertainment.

Just three days before J. Krishnamurti died, one of my friends was with him; and he reported to me that his words to him were very strange. Krishnamurti was very sad and he simply said one thing: "I have wasted my life. People were listening to me as if I am an entertainment."

The mystic is a revolution; he is not entertainment.

If you hear him, if you allow him, if you open your doors to him, he is pure fire. He will burn all that is rubbish in you, all that is old in you, and he will purify you into a new human being. It is risky to allow fire into your being - rather than opening the doors, you immediately close all the doors.

But entertainment is another thing. It does not change you. It does not make you more conscious; on the contrary, it helps you to remain unconscious for two, three hours, so that you can forget all your worries, concerns, anxieties - so that you can get lost in the entertainment. You can note it: as man has passed through the centuries, he has managed to create more and more entertainments, because he needs more and more to be unconscious. He is afraid of being conscious, because being conscious means to go through a metamorphosis.

THE HAND MOVED, THE CLOCK OF MY LIFE HELD ITS BREATH - I HAD NEVER HEARD SUCH STILLNESS ABOUT ME: SO THAT MY HEART WAS TERRIFIED.

THEN, VOICELESSLY, SOMETHING SAID TO ME: 'YOU KNOW, ZARATHUSTRA?' AND I CRIED OUT FOR TERROR AT THIS WHISPER, AND THE BLOOD DRAINED FROM MY FACE; BUT I KEPT SILENT.

Knowing is not something terrible - but he is talking to the disciples and he is creating this whole monologue in such a way that they can be entertained, that they can listen to it just as a parable, or just as a dream. YOU KNOW, ZARATHUSTRA? a voiceless something said to me. AND I CRIED OUT FOR TERROR... BUT I KEPT SILENT.

THEN AGAIN, SOMETHING SAID TO ME VOICELESSLY: 'YOU KNOW, ZARATHUSTRA, BUT YOU DO NOT SPEAK!'

AND I ANSWERED AT LAST DEFIANTLY: 'YES, I KNOW, BUT I WILL NOT SPEAK!'

THEN AGAIN SOMETHING SAID TO ME VOICELESSLY: 'YOU WILL NOT, ZARATHUSTRA? IS THIS TRUE? DO NOT HIDE YOURSELF IN YOUR DEFIANCE!'

AND I WEPT AND TREMBLED LIKE A CHILD AND SAID: 'ALAS, I WANT TO, BUT HOW CAN I?

RELEASE ME FROM THIS ALONE! IT IS BEYOND MY STRENGTH!'

THEN AGAIN SOMETHING SAID TO ME VOICELESSLY: 'OF WHAT CONSEQUENCE ARE YOU, ZARATHUSTRA? SPEAK YOUR TEACHING AND BREAK!'

AND I ANSWERED: 'AH, IS IT MY TEACHING? WHO AM I? I AWAIT ONE WHO IS MORE WORTHY; I AM NOT WORTHY EVEN TO BREAK BY IT.'

THEN AGAIN SOMETHING SAID TO ME VOICELESSLY: 'O ZARATHUSTRA, HE WHO HAS TO MOVE MOUNTAINS MOVES VALLEYS AND LOWLANDS TOO.'

AND I ANSWERED: 'MY WORDS HAVE AS YET MOVED NO MOUNTAINS AND WHAT I HAVE SPOKEN HAS NOT REACHED MEN. INDEED, I WENT TO MEN, BUT I HAVE NOT YET ATTAINED THEM.'

THEN AGAIN SOMETHING SAID TO ME VOICELESSLY: 'HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT? THE DEW FALLS UPON THE GRASS WHEN THE NIGHT IS AT ITS MOST SILENT.'

All these things he is saying to his disciples in such an indirect way that they don't feel that they are being addressed - a story is being told; they are just enjoying the parable. They are not on guard, and that is the whole purpose of the monologue: to put the disciples off guard.

AND I ANSWERED: 'THEY MOCKED ME WHEN I FOUND AND WALKED MY OWN WAY; AND IN TRUTH MY FEET TREMBLED THEN.

'AND THEY SPOKE THUS TO ME: YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN THE WAY, NOW YOU WILL ALSO FORGET HOW TO WALK!'

THEN AGAIN SOMETHING SAID TO ME VOICELESSLY: 'OF WHAT CONSEQUENCE IS THEIR MOCKERY? YOU ARE ONE WHO HAS UNLEARNED HOW TO OBEY: NOW YOU SHALL COMMAND!

'DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS ALL MEN MOST NEED? HIM WHO COMMANDS GREAT THINGS.

'TO PERFORM GREAT THINGS IS DIFFICULT: BUT MORE DIFFICULT IS TO COMMAND GREAT THINGS.

'THIS IS THE MOST UNPARDONABLE THING ABOUT YOU: YOU HAVE THE POWER AND YOU WILL NOT RULE.'

AND I ANSWERED: 'I LACK THE LION'S VOICE FOR COMMAND.'

THEN AGAIN SOMETHING SAID TO ME AS IN A WHISPER: 'IT IS THE STILLEST WORDS WHICH BRING THE STORM. THOUGHTS THAT COME ON DOVES' FEET GUIDE THE WORLD.

'O ZARATHUSTRA, YOU SHALL GO AS A SHADOW OF THAT WHICH MUST COME: THUS YOU MUST COMMAND AND COMMANDING LEAD THE WAY.'

AND I ANSWERED: 'I AM ASHAMED.'

THEN AGAIN SOMETHING SAID TO ME VOICELESSLY: 'YOU MUST YET BECOME A CHILD AND WITHOUT SHAME.

AND I CONSIDERED LONG AND TREMBLED. AT LAST, HOWEVER, I SAID WHAT I HAD SAID AT FIRST: 'I WILL NOT.'

THEN A LAUGHING BROKE OUT AROUND ME. ALAS, HOW THIS LAUGHING TORE MY BODY AND RIPPED OPEN MY HEART!

AND FOR THE LAST TIME SOMETHING SAID TO ME: 'O ZARATHUSTRA, YOUR FRUITS ARE RIPE BUT YOU ARE NOT RIPE FOR YOUR FRUITS!

'SO YOU MUST GO BACK INTO SOLITUDE: FOR YOU SHALL YET GROW MELLOW.'

NOW YOU HAVE HEARD EVERYTHING, AND WHY I MUST RETURN TO MY SOLITUDE. I HAVE KEPT NOTHING BACK FROM YOU, MY FRIENDS.

AND YOU HAVE HEARD, TOO, WHO IS THE MOST SILENT OF MEN - AND INTENDS TO REMAIN SO!

This strange piece of monologue is a tremendously beautiful device. It is said, if you want your wife to listen to you, don't tell her directly, but whisper to somebody else... not loudly, just whisper in his ear and she will hear. Zarathustra is doing the same. He is not addressing the disciples as usual; he is tired of it. He has tried to reach men, but he has not been able to reach - they are so closed.

And particularly they are very closed to strangers and outsiders like Zarathustra. You talk in the crowd, and you listen in the crowd, without much trouble; you enjoy good conversations. But with a man like Zarathustra, there is no conversation. He speaks, and you have just to listen. Even when it seems like a dialogue, it is a monologue.

I have been asked many times, particularly by celebrities of some kind, if they could come to me to discuss a few things. And I have always answered them, "If you want to say something to me, I am ready to listen, but if you want to hear something from me, then you cannot speak. Then you have to be just silent and listen. Discussion is out of the question."

Discussion they enjoy, arguing they enjoy. Conversations are enjoyed all over the world - day in, day out, people are talking. But when you come to a man who knows, there is no question of any discussion. Either you hear him or you don't hear him. If you hear him, in the very hearing you feel the truth of it. Nothing is left to discuss. And if you don't hear him, what are you going to discuss?

I have also observed people ask questions of me, and when I am answering them, they are the most unfortunate ones because they are not able to listen. They are tense - it is their question.

Everybody else is immensely fortunate because it is not their question. They are sitting, relaxed, listening; they understand more than the person whose question I am answering.

Just the idea that "it is my question" makes them tense, worried, and afraid: I may be hard with them; I may say something which hurts; I may destroy some old idea that they have been clinging to for a long time. Naturally they cannot listen. But I answer them because I know that everybody else will be immensely helped, because their questions are also your questions. But because you have not asked, you can remain relaxed; you can listen - there is no harm.

Man's mind and its functioning is very strange.

This piece of Zarathustra's shows a great understanding. He has tried to address his disciples directly, and he has not been able to reach them. And I don't think there is any possibility to improve upon his statements - they are perfect. Now he is saying, "I would like to tell you a parable, a dream, before I go into solitude. And I am going into solitude, into silence, to find deeper ways, subtler ways to reach men - because what use is my understanding if I cannot share it? And what use is my experience if I cannot help those who are groping in the dark?"

The mystic's greatest problem, greater than attaining his experience, is to express it.

There is a story about Gautam Buddha. Every night his disciples, before going to sleep, had to meditate. And it was a very significant thing, because if you can go into sleep with a silent, peaceful mind, that space of silence and peace is carried all through your night. Just one hour's meditation before sleep turns into eight hours' meditation.

Whatever is your last thought when you fall asleep will be your first thought when you wake up. You can check it: just remember what your last thought is and you will be amazed - as you start feeling that you are awakening, the same thought is standing at your door.

It means you can use six or eight hours of sleep in a tremendously creative way. And the most significant will be to go into sleep, slip into sleep, meditatively. Meditation slowly, slowly becomes your sleep, and then your sleep becomes meditation. And to meditate eight hours or six hours is going to change you so totally, without any effort, that you will be surprised: you have not done anything, but now you are not the same person who used to be angry over small things, who used to hate, who used to be greedy, who used to be violent, who used to be jealous, who used to be competitive.

All those things have disappeared and you have not done anything - you have been simply meditating before you go to sleep. That is the best time, because in the day you cannot get six hours to devote to meditation. But anyway you have to sleep - why not transform your sleep into meditation? That was a great contribution of Gautam Buddha.

So it was customary for his disciples.... Hence, he never used to say after his evening talk, "Now go and meditate before you fall asleep." Rather than saying that, he used to say - it had become a code, because every evening it was repeated - "I have said what I wanted to say to you; now do your real work before you go to sleep."

One night, a prostitute and a thief also had come to listen to Gautam Buddha, and when he said, "Now go and do your real work before you go to sleep," the thief said, "My God! In ten thousand people I am hiding myself, and this fellow knows about my work. And not only does he know, he is commanding me, 'Now go and do your real work before you go to sleep.'"

He was immensely impressed and so was the prostitute. She could not believe that Gautam Buddha could be aware of her and aware also that she was a prostitute and her real work was in the night.

The man was amazing - his vision, his clarity!

The next morning they both came to touch Gautam Buddha's feet, and he said, "What is the matter?"

The thief said, "Nothing is hidden from you. Last night was the last time that I even thought of stealing. I will never do it - you changed me without preventing me from stealing. On the contrary, you said, 'Go and do your real work.' And I said, 'I am wasting my life. Such consciousness is possible for me too.'"

And the prostitute said, "I have dropped my profession. I had never thought that you would say before ten thousand people, 'Now go and do your real work.' I am not going anywhere now; now my real work is at your feet."

Buddha said, "My God, that 'real work' was something else I was saying to my disciples."

They said, "Don't try to deceive us."

And Buddha used to speak about this incident - they both became his disciples - he used to say to people, "It is very difficult to know what you are going to understand. One thing is certain: it is not going to be the same as what I am saying. I will say one thing and it depends on you what you hear.

I cannot control it."

And the last day, when he was dying, he was asked by Ananda, "You have not allowed any of your words to be written in your lifetime because when people misunderstand you in your very presence, what meanings will they take from a book? How they will distort cannot be conceived of. So you did not allow us to write anything. But after your death.... Please give us permission, because the words that you have spoken are pure gold, and they should be preserved for the coming generations."

So Buddha said, "You can write them, but I have one condition: each scripture that you make out of my words should begin, 'I have heard Gautam Buddha say....' Don't start it, 'Gautam Buddha said this.' You simply report what you have heard."

That is why all Buddhist scriptures start with the same sentence: "I have heard Gautam Buddha saying this." The implication is clear - that he may not have meant what I have heard; he may not have said it at all, but this is what I have heard.

No other scripture in the world, of any religion, begins with those words - because that was Buddha's condition: "If you write, remember, don't write that Gautam Buddha said this. How can you know what Gautam Buddha said? All that you can say is, 'I have heard Gautam Buddha saying this.' Make it a point that you don't impose your hearing on my sayings."

It is certainly almost impossible to understand a Buddha, a Zarathustra, a Jesus, because they are speaking from such heights and you are living in such deep, dark valleys that by the time their words reach you, they have lost the quality of a sunlit peak, and they have gathered the qualities of your dark valleys.

The day Gautam Buddha became enlightened, he remained for seven days silent, because he could not see any possibility to communicate what had happened to him. He thought over it again and again. Those seven days were a great torment for him. He wanted to speak, because it might help somebody somewhere, but he could not see the possibility that he would be able to reach anyone.

And the parable is that those who had become enlightened before him, and were no longer in their bodies.... In Buddhism they are called gods; Buddhism has no single God - anybody who becomes enlightened is a god. On that point Zarathustra and Buddha are absolutely in agreement. God is your future, not your past; it is not that God created you - it is you who have to create the God in your consciousness, by purifying it so totally that it becomes divine.

So the people who had become enlightened before him were watching from their universal state, unembodied, and said, "Why is this man not speaking? He has to speak... for the simple reason that in thousands of years only one person becomes enlightened, and if he does not speak he will not be able to share his ecstasy, he will not be able to help people, to show the way - and there are millions of people who are groping in the dark, searching for truth. An enlightened man cannot be forgiven if he remains silent; although his silence can be understood, he cannot be forgiven."

They waited for seven days, and finally they came down - just bodiless voices. And they told Gautam Buddha, "This is not right. The whole existence is waiting for you to speak, because you are the hope for raising the consciousness of humanity higher. Don't remain silent."

But Buddha's argument was clear: "Do you think that if I speak to people they will get it? Do you think there is any possibility that I will be understood? There is every possibility that I will be MISunderstood. Now the gap seems to be unbridgeable; they are creatures of darkness. I was also a creature of darkness and I understand what darkness does to people, what blindness does to people. Now I am an outsider. My language will be of light, and they can understand only the language of darkness. Still do you suggest that I speak?"

The gods were silent. They could not find any argument to convince Gautam Buddha, but they were very reluctant to leave him without convincing him. So they went aside and discussed among themselves what to do: "What he is saying is right - it is our own experience - but some way has to be found, some argument that compels him to speak."

And they found a way. They came back and they said, "We agree with you. But we agree with you only 99.9 percent. You have to give us at least .1 percent. We are not asking much; we are giving you almost one hundred percent, but you have to give us a little chance. We understand what you are saying - it is our own experience too. But we have come to say to you that there are a few people, a very few people, who are just on the verge... a little push and they will move from darkness to light. And if nobody gives them a little push, they may move even more into darkness.

"And they are borderline cases - you have to concede that there are a few cases which are just on the boundary. You have to speak for those few people who have somehow, accidentally perhaps, reached to the boundary of their darkness. Just a little push and they will be out of the darkness into the full daylight. They are not many, maybe very few; but even if a dozen people can become enlightened with your effort, it is a great reward. Existence will remain obliged to you forever."

Buddha could not deny this. The argument was significant - and that was the beginning of his long journey amongst the crowds. For forty-two years he was speaking - morning, evening - to the very last moment of his life. And it was certainly good that he spoke, because more people became enlightened around him than around anybody else in the whole world.

The effort is tedious; the possibility of being misunderstood is great. Zarathustra's going into solitude has two points. One, he wants to find new ways, new methods, new words, new nets to catch men and drag them out of their blindness and their darkness. And secondly, he wants his disciples to understand that they have failed him, that they have not been what was expected of them, and that he has to go, just to find new ways of approaching their hearts.

NOW YOU HAVE HEARD EVERYTHING, AND WHY I MUST RETURN TO MY SOLITUDE. I HAVE KEPT NOTHING BACK FROM YOU... AND YOU HAVE HEARD, TOO, WHO IS THE MOST SILENT OF MEN - AND INTENDS TO REMAIN SO!

... THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.