The last milestone

Maneesha, these dialogues between Zen masters and their disciples almost appear to be of another world. You will not hear anything alike anywhere else. They lived in a totally different dimension and they talked about things which don't matter to you. But to them, those things mattered the most.

What matters to you, is immaterial to them, as if we belong to two different worlds. Their world is of immense beauty and of great blissfulness. Our world is of anxiety and anguish and angst. It is the world of mortality. We are here only just for a few years. We don't know from where we have come.

We don't know where we go. We don't know even who we are.

These questions have been put aside by the technological progress of science, and people's minds have become absolutely materialistic. They have forgotten one thing: their own consciousness.

These dialogues are about your own consciousness and its inner secrets. Without experiencing these secrets of your inner life, your life is not much of a life. It is very superficial.

The deeper you go inwards, everything in your life starts getting depth - it may be love, it may be creativity, it may be singing, it may be dancing. You can dance very superficially just making the movements of the dance, but you can dance so deeply that the dancer disappears and only the dance remains. When the dance remains, then only is the essential left. All non-essentials have gone. You are also gone. You are a non-essential.

Something in you is of the essential, and all these dialogues are in search of that essential - from different angles, different viewpoints. So you must remember never to get confused between your language and the language of these dialogues. It is the same language, but used by very different people, by very different experiences, to be expressed.

ON ONE OCCASION YUN KUANG ASKED HYAKUJO, "MASTER, DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU WILL BE REBORN?"

HYAKUJO REPLIED, "WE HAVE NOT DIED YET; SO WHAT IS THE USE OF DISCUSSING OUR REBIRTHS? THAT WHICH KNOWS BIRTH IS UNBORN."

But very few people are born unconsciously, and very few people die consciously. It is a natural arrangement of anaesthesia. Before you die your whole biology releases all that makes you absolutely unconscious. It is the greatest surgery; nature has made a prearrangement for it. Only a very deep meditator, who has reached to samadhi will be able to avoid this poisoning, this oncoming cloud of unconsciousness. He will keep his light alive, his eyes open. Death will come and go. The body will be gone, the mind will be gone, but this essential awareness will enter another womb.

Hyakujo is saying, "That which knows birth is the unborn." That one which knows the death, does not die. How can it die and know death at the same time?

One Sufi mystic, Omar Khayyam, has written a great book and became known worldwide. Hundreds of translations have happened, but all are full of misunderstandings. They thought that he was only a poet talking about this world. He was a mystic, and all that he was talking about was symbolic.

His book's name is RUBAIYAT. The rubaiyat is again a very special form of Persian poetry, just like a haiku.

In one of his rubaiyat he says to his friends not to be afraid of death for two reasons: if you die, you die. There is nothing to be afraid of. There will be nobody left behind, so there is no question of fear.

If it is as the religions say, that you don't die, then there is no question of being afraid, death does not happen. In either case, fear is irrelevant.

If you can die knowingly, that means the element that is passing through the tunnel of death, is separate from death. The life principle is eternal. It takes many forms, thousands of lives to become a man. Up to now nobody has appeared who is a superman.

Man, up to now, is the ultimate in the evolution of consciousness, but it is very superficial, very new. Underneath, there is deep unconsciousness. So when you die, that deep unconsciousness overfloods your consciousness and you die without knowing what is happening. Everybody knows that you have died except you. And because the death is unconscious, your being born into a womb cannot be conscious.

Both the ends have to be the same: if death is conscious, then birth will be conscious. If death is unconscious, then the birth is unconscious. You don't know anything about from where you are coming because you were not conscious about your birth. You are certainly coming from somewhere.

THAT WHICH KNOWS BIRTH IS THE UNBORN. This is a very pregnant sentence. That which knows birth is beyond birth. That which knows death is beyond death. It is only a witness. It goes on only watching - that the old body is gone and the new womb has been made available, that a new body has started growing. In deep hypnosis you can be reminded of your experiences in the nine months of your mother's womb. Nine months cannot go without any episodes. Your mother may fall down, your mother may be very angry, or very loving....

All that goes on in your mother's mind and body affects the child who is still attached to the mother's body - everything. Those nine months are of tremendous importance. If the mother can remember that a child is growing in her - she should take care not to do anything, not to act anything that may create a difficulty for the child in his life, because these nine months are the most important period of the whole life of seventy years.

This way, two persons will be changed. The mother takes care of the child and is aware that she has not to do anything that will be disadvantageous to the child. She cannot be angry, she cannot be jealous, she cannot be hateful; she cannot do or even think anything wrong. So two persons are being changed. Those nine months are transforming two persons, the child and the mother.

If in nine months one woman can remain without jealousy, without anger, without hatred, but with just pure love, compassion, the joy of this nine-month experience will be so much that when the child is born, she is not going to fall back to her old habits.

In India we had developed a very scientific process from the very moment of impregnation until the birth of the child, of how the mother has to live, what she has to do. Her life should be of gratitude that God or the universe has given her an opportunity to bring life into existence. Her days and nights should be full of dreams of a buddha. Her child should be a buddha. But he can only be a buddha if seeds are sown. Right now is the time: the soil is soft and the child is absolutely available.

Do you see the significance? It will change both the persons, the mother and the child.

The child can become conscious only if in his past life he has meditated enough, has created enough meditative energy to fight with the darkness that death brings. One simply is lost in an oblivion and then suddenly finds a new womb and forgets completely about the old body. There is a discontinuity.

This darkness, this unconsciousness creates the discontinuity.

The East has been working hard to penetrate these barriers. And ten thousand years' work has not been in vain. Everybody can penetrate to the past life or many past lives. But for that you have to go deeper into your meditation for two reasons: unless you go deeper, you cannot find the door to another life; secondly, you have to be deeper in meditation, because if you find the door of another life, a flood of events will come into the mind.

It is hard enough even to carry one life. It will become very clumsy and complex if old memories start harassing you. The implications are such that perhaps the person who is your wife now, was your mother in the past life. Now you will be in a very weird state. How to behave with the woman - as a mother or as your wife? Your life will become a great anxiety. The person who you think is your greatest friend, has been your murderer in the past life. Now how are you going to relate with him?

- and you cannot manage to take anybody with you to your past life, so there is no evidence...! The friend will say, "Are you mad? I murdered you? You must have dreamed it. In dreams all kinds of things happen. Forget all about it." But you cannot forget because you know it was not a dream. It happened in a deep meditation and whenever you go to that point, it always happens. You cannot repeat a dream. You cannot even connect a broken dream.

One night Mulla Nasruddin shouted loudly to his wife, "Bring my glasses! Quick!" - in the middle of the night!

The wife said, "What are you going to read?"

He said, "Don't discuss. This is not the moment to discuss. Just bring!"

So the poor woman brought the glasses. He put the glasses on and he said, "Just go on back to sleep. I saw such a beautiful woman, but because my eyesight is not good, things were a little vague." He tried hard to see the woman again with glasses on, but he could not manage.

Another time again he asked for the glasses....

The wife said, "You are going mad. Glasses won't help your eyesight in dreams. In dreams your eyesight is perfect."

But he said, "It is a question of great importance. Don't you argue. Just bring my glasses!" And putting his glasses on, he said, "Okay, now come on."

A man was offering him one thousand dollars and he wanted to be sure whether the bill was fake or real. But now neither the man was there, nor that one thousand dollar bill was there. He tried hard this way and that way. And he shouted loudly, "Where have you gone?"

You cannot join a broken dream. You cannot repeat a dream on your own. If it repeats by itself, that is a different thing, but you cannot manage to repeat some beautiful dream again and again - not even once.

But as far as past lives are concerned, this is the difference: as you go deeper into your meditation, if you want to open the doors, you can, but you have to be aware. You will be flooded with tremendous meaningful memories, and they will be as actual as if they are of this life. They will not be like dreams, that you open your eyes and the dream is gone. They will be as actual as your life, but that creates trouble.

If you remember two or three lives, you will be in the same state as the centipede I have told you about....

He had been living perfectly well and was going for a morning walk, when a little rabbit asked him, "Uncle, I have to ask a question. I have been resisting so as not to disturb your morning walk, but I cannot resist it anymore."

The centipede said, "Okay, what is your question?"

He said, "My question is, how do you manage your hundred legs: which one should come first, which one should come second, which one should come third...? How do you manage one hundred legs together?"

He said, "I have never thought about. I am not a philosophical type. You seem to be a philosophical type... but I will try and find out."

He tried and fell immediately over his legs. He was very angry with the rabbit. He said, "Keep your philosophy to yourself. Never ask any centipede.... Everything is being managed on its own, and I have never thought about it. You are a dangerous fellow. You look so nice, but your questions...!"

If you know three or four lives, you will be in the same position. You will not be able to move, because these same people were related to you in your past lives in different relationships. Somebody was your child, now he is your father; somebody was your mother, now she is somebody else's wife...

you cannot go to her. Perhaps the neighbor's wife was your wife. Your mind will be so bombarded.

That's why nature absolutely closes the doors, completely seals them so you don't know anything about where you are coming from. But those doors can be opened.

In India we have a special science for it - jaati smaran, remembrance of the past. A certain meditation, certain preparations and you can enter into past lives. But remember that you have to have the stamina and the guts not to get lost. Only in the East has reincarnation been considered.

And the three religions which have born in India are the only religions which have an absolute agreement on the point of reincarnation. They differ in their philosophy, theology, on everything, but not on rebirth. It is factual to all of them. They all have come in their meditations to the same place.

They cannot deny it.

It is an existential fact that you have been before and you will be after your death. The one that was before birth, and the one that will be after death is the same one. Its name is the buddha. Its name is the witness. It never dies and it never is born.

The problem to understand is, Hyakujo says: THAT WHICH KNOWS BIRTH IS THE UNBORN - the knower of the birth is the unborn witness. WE CANNOT STRAY FROM BIRTH TO SPEAK OF THE UNBORN - if you have not died with absolute consciousness, you cannot talk about the unborn and the undying. THE PATRIARCH ONCE SAID, "THAT WHICH UNDERGOES BIRTH IS REALLY UNBORN."

Confucius, one of the greatest thinkers of the world, was not a religious man. His concern was more civilization, culture, morality, etiquette, ethics. He has influenced the whole of China for these past twenty-five centuries. He is still influencing the Chinese behavior.

One day a young follower asked him, "You talk about life, you talk about how to style it, how to refine it, how to make it honest, how to make it truthful, but you never say anything about what will happen after death."

Confucius said, "There is no need to talk about it. It is certain that you will die. Then, lying in your grave for eternity, you can think whatever you want to think. Why bother me? I will be thinking in my grave; you will be thinking in your grave."

He simply laughed about the question, because to get entangled in a question like death or birth, immediately brings you to the point that these things are beyond thinking. You cannot think anything about birth or death. If you really want to know, you will have to drop all thinking, and enter into the empty heart. Only the empty heart knows the eternity of your being.

YUN KUANG ASKED, "DOES THIS APPLY EVEN TO THOSE WHO HAVE YET TO PERCEIVE THEIR OWN NATURE?"

HYAKUJO SAID, "YOUR NOT HAVING PERCEIVED YOUR OWN NATURE DOES NOT IMPLY THAT YOU lack THAT NATURE. WHY SO? BECAUSE PERCEPTION ITSELF is THAT NATURE....

Told in a more contemporary way: I have been telling you continuously, you are a buddha. And I know that you are suspicious - you, and a buddha? Your suspicion or your doubt does not make any difference. Your buddhahood remains the same. You can know it - you can ignore it.

The English word 'ignorance' to me simply means ignoring your buddha, ignoring your own nature.

This nature is absolutely clear, transparent. You can see the whole world reflected in it, just like in a mirror, but you have to be utterly silent, centered. That's what we are trying to do here.

"THAT WHICH CAN PRODUCE THE MYRIAD PHENOMENA OF THE UNIVERSE IS CALLED THE DHARMA NATURE; OTHERWISE KNOWN AS THE DHARMAKAYA.

"THE PATRIARCH, ASVAGOSHA, DECLARED:'IN SPEAKING OF PHENOMENA, WE REALLY REFER TO THE MINDS OF SENTIENT BEINGS, FOR WHEN MENTAL PROCESSES OCCUR, ALL SORTS OF PHENOMENA TAKE BIRTH IN ACCORDANCE WITH THEM; WHEN MENTAL PROCESSES DO NOT OCCUR, PHENOMENA HAVE NOTHING IN WHICH TO ARISE - THERE ARE NOT EVEN NAMES FOR THEM.'"

He is saying that everything is contained in your mind. All that you perceive, all that you name, all that you know is contained in your mind. From all your five senses you go on collecting knowledge.

Those five senses are really extensions of your mind. You will be able to understand it very easily.

Before this century it was not thought that the sex center is in your mind and not in your genitals.

So as you start thinking of sex, immediately the genitals are affected. If we want real celibacy in the world, you don't have to cut people's genitals as they used to do in Russia.

A certain sect of fanatic Christians used to cut their genitals. Women used to cut their breasts...

nothing else to cut, the only protruding thing - and these people were thought to be saints. But they were not aware that by cutting your genitals you will not be a celibate, because the center of your sexuality is in your mind.

If we want real celibacy, then we have to cut the nerve in the mind which pulsates and creates sexual dreams in you, sexual fantasies in you. Once it is cut you will not be able to do anything with your genitals. They will hang out dead. However you try, it won't work. The center of all your activities and all your senses is in the mind. Smelling or your eyes or your hearing... everything is centered within your skull.

Mind is your world. If we take out the mind, your whole world disappears.

Meditation is an effort that the world you have known through the mind, disappears, and a new perception of no-mind arises in you. What you cannot see with the mind, you can see with the no-mind.

Birth and death have no influence on the no-mind. It simply floats away above birth and death. It has seen many births and many deaths. It does not matter to it, it simply goes on reflecting whatsoever is happening. Nothing leaves a trace on your witnessing. I would like to call this witnessing the buddha. It becomes more understandable, closer.

A haiku by Basho:

MOOR:

POINT MY HORSE WHERE BIRDS SING.

Basho lived a very natural life by the side of a pond, under an ancient tree where he had a small hut.

He was a prince and when his father died, he renounced it. The family was very much in despair and they said, "This is not the point. Your father is dead and you have to take care of his kingdom."

Basho said, "I was waiting for him to die. I wanted to see that everyone dies. Even my father has died. One day I will die and who will take care of this castle and the kingdom? Somebody will take care. Now I cannot remain here, because there is danger of dying any moment. Before I die, I have to know some undying principle as my foundation."

He was a very loving, joyous and a dancing mystic. He is saying, "Moor: point my horse where birds sing."

Let us go to the birds because they are the only people left in the world who are still singing. Man has dropped singing far away. Now only professionals sing. Have you seen in birds any professional singers... professional musicians...? Birds simply sing just out of sheer joy. It does not matter whether it means anything or not. Meaning is not the point; expressing the joy is the point. "Point my horse where birds sing."

He always wanted his haikus to be just spontaneous singing like birds - and he succeeded in it.

There is no parallel to the haikus of Basho in the whole history of mankind.

Question 1:

Maneesha has asked:

There are two realities: one that is perceived by the mind, and one that is perceived by the no-mind.

For the no-mind, the reality of the mind becomes phenomenal, dreamlike. That's why people who have attained to buddhahood, will call the world just a dream. But a dream also has its own existence - the buddha also becomes hungry. You cannot eat meditation. You will have something from the world of the mind, something objective to eat, because your hunger is also part of the objective world, your body is part of the objective world. You are standing on the borderline of two worlds: the objective world outside, and the subjective world inside. As you go deeper into the subjective, the outer becomes more and more dreamlike, a faraway echo. But I will not say it is unreal. The people who have said it is unreal simply mean that it has no significance.

I was meeting a Jaina monk, and he said, "Everything outside is illusory."

I said, "Can I slap you?"

He said, "You are a strange fellow. Why should you slap me?"

I said, "You have forgotten that the outside world is just a dream. In a dream can you prevent anybody slapping you? There is certainly a difference between a dream and the outside world. Just tell me that the outside world has a different reality, not the same stuff as dreams are made off, otherwise I will slap you."

He looked all around, but I had come with almost twenty friends, so he saw that the situation was not going to be just philosophical wrestling, it was going to be real wrestling.

He said, "For the moment I accept."

I said, "For the moment won't do. No conditions are allowed. Are you afraid of being slapped?"

The problem is, the people who have gone in, the deeper they go in, the farther away the outer reality becomes. But the outer reality has its own existence. Its existence needs a mind, and the inner reality has a far greater and far more majestic existence. For it no-mind is needed. So it is a double-tier world: mind has its world, and no-mind has on top of it a very beautiful, a very majestic world.

My effort has been to convince all kinds of people. There are people who deny any inner world - just the objective world is the only reality; all the inner is just dream. And on the other hand there are people who say that everything inner is real, and everything outside is just a dream. But they both agree on one point, that they are denying one reality.

I want to accept both realities. How can the inner exist without the outer? And how can the outer exist without the inner? That's why I started calling sannyasin restaurants and their discos, Zorba the Buddha. Zorba represents the outside reality.

Kazantzakis, in his great book, ZORBA THE GREEK has given something of immense value to the world. He has given Zorba. It has become almost a reality, not just a fictitious name. Zorba is happy in mediocre things, in anything - drinking, dancing, loving - a very vibrant, a very alive person.

The Church of Greece expelled him from the church because he created Zorba the Greek. Amrito is here from Greece. She has received a letter from Kazantzakis' wife saying that she would like to be the director of our World Academy. Kazantzakis suffered very much because of the Orthodox Church of Greece.

When I say Zorba the Buddha, I am trying to bring the inner and outer closer. There is no need that Zorba should remain only a Zorba. It is perfectly good, but it is not the highest point where consciousness can rise to greater realities, to greater mysteries.

Zorba has to become the Buddha.

Zorba is the seed of the Buddha.

You are all born as Zorbas - liking the ordinary things of the world, carrying your buddha inside, ignoring it. But even if you realize the buddha, I will not deny the outside world. I am absolutely scientific in the sense that whatever is true; it may be outer, it may be inner. The inner may be a higher reality; the outer may be a lower reality. But as far as reality is concerned, there are two realities: a reality which is perceived by the mind, and a reality which opens its doors to the no-mind.

Now it is Anando time....

Old Buffalo Grass, the ageing hippy, is bopping down the street puffing away on a couple of reefers.

To his amazement, he finds himself standing in front of a barber shop.

"Far out!" he says to himself, scratching his big beard. "I haven't had a haircut for thirty-two years."

So, in a cloud of smoke, he walks in, and sits down in the barber's chair.

"How much is a haircut?" asks Buffalo.

The barber looks at the old hippy's long straggly hair and says, "Ten dollars!"

Buffalo's eyes pop out. "Really?" he says. "And how much for a shave?"

"Two dollars," replies the barber.

"Okay," says Buffalo Grass, pointing to his head, "shave it!"

Little Albert goes to stay with his grandparents at their house in the country. Grandpa and Albert decide to to fishing early next morning, and they sleep together in the same bed so that they will not disturb Grandma when they get up.

In the middle of the night, Grandpa wakes up, and shakes Little Albert.

"Albert!" he cries, excitedly. "Quick! Go and get your grandma. I have got an erection...! My first one for twenty-one years!"

"Relax, Grandpa," says Albert, sleepily, "that's my prick you are holding!"

Little Ernie is at the zoo with his teacher, Miss Goodbody, and the entire class. They are touring around when Ernie sees a deer peacefully grazing on some grass.

"Ernie, can you tell us the name of that animal?" asks Miss Goodbody, pointing to the deer.

"Well," says Ernie, "I think it is a... I guess it is a..."

"Let me give you a hint," interrupts Miss Goodbody. "What does your mother call your father every morning?"

"Oh, right!" shouts Ernie. "It is an asshole!"

Anando...

(Drumbeat) (Gibberish) (Drumbeat) Be silent.

Close your eyes.

Feel your body to be completely frozen.

Now, with tremendous urgency, look inwards. Gather all your consciousness like an arrow pointing to the center of your being.

The center of your being is the target, because at the center of your being you are the buddha.

As you reach to the center flowers start showering on you. A new fragrance, a new cool breeze, a new silence - you are entering into another world.

The buddha is the last milestone.

Once you have reached the buddha, you can take a jump into the beyond. Then words lose meaning.

Only a silent, luminous life remains with a music of its own, with no movement - but a great dance.

This is the other world beyond the world in which we live. Both are real, but the first world consists of ordinary objects, and the other inner world consists of great mysteries and miracles. You have to learn to be a witness to both. The outer and the inner, both are realities and there is also something more than a reality: that is your witness.

Go beyond the outer and the inner both.

Go beyond duality, and a grace starts falling over you like rain. In this great moment you are not, only existence is, with all its glories, eternities - unbounded.

This is the world the mystic has been working to enter in. Just as the scientist is trying to work in the objective world, the mystic's work is far greater. First he has to enter the inner, and then he has to transcend both, the inner and the outer. That transcendental is beyond words; nobody has ever said anything about it.

To make the transcendental clear, Nivedano...

(Drumbeat) Relax. Just be a witness of the body, of the mind, of anything that is happening.

Remain just a mirror.

This is your very origin. This is not divided. This is one whole continent. At this moment the ten thousand buddhas are no longer ten thousand - just one nature, one silent flowering, one peaceful watcher.

Collect as much joy as possible, as much awareness as possible, because you have to remain a buddha twenty-four hours in a lower kind of reality.

But keep the cleanness of your mirror whatever you are doing. Then every act and gesture becomes a prayer, a gratitude. And from all over, blessings go on coming to you. You had not asked for them, you had not even known that they exist. But when the heart is empty, the whole existence becomes immensely compassionate to you.

Gather all these flowers, these fragrances. When you come back, come back as a buddha.

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat) Come back, silently, peacefully, gracefully. Sit down for a few moments, collecting the space you have been in, remembering that this is the way you have to be twenty-four hours. Only then you will be capable to know the great existence and its hidden treasure.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

Can we celebrate?

Yes, Osho!