What words cannot say...

Maneesha, language has never been used the way Zen uses it - very symbolic, metaphoric, yet indicating to the ultimate reality. Its prose also is poetry. And while listening to these dialogues, you should not be listening only by the ears, your empty heart is needed to receive them. Only then have you welcomed them because they are not mere prose pieces, they are living hearts of great masters.

'Concurrent causes' is a logical terminology. It means like the tracks of railway lines. The two rails run side by side for miles together, but they will never meet. They are so close but the distance remains always the same. Because of the distance remaining the same, the meeting is impossible.

They are concurrent causes. Mind and words and speech are concurrent causes. That is one of the most fundamental things about Zen. Nobody has said that before.

People have always thought that mind means word, speech, thoughts - but that is not true. They are very close, concurrent, so close that you can get the conception that they are one. But when you get deeper into meditation and leave the world of words and speech, you suddenly find there is an empty mind beyond them which is your real mind. To distinguish it, we call it the empty heart.

Either to call it no-mind, real-mind, empty heart... they are all synonymous. But ordinarily, you are so close to thinking, emotions, words, that you cannot conceive there is a sky beyond the clouds, that there is a full moon beyond the clouds. You will have to go beyond the clouds to see the moon.

THE MONK CONTINUED, "WHAT IS THIS MIND WHICH LIES BEYOND WORDS AND SPEECH?"

Now, anybody of some intelligence will not ask such a question. If anything lies beyond, AND SPEECH, you cannot ask such a question. "WHAT IS THIS MIND WHICH LIES BEYOND WORDS AND SPEECH?" If it is beyond words and speech, how can it be answered?

"THERE IS NO MIND BEYOND WORDS AND SPEECH," RESPONDED HYAKUJO.

THE MONK SAID, "IF THERE IS NO MIND BEYOND WORDS AND SPEECH, WHAT IS THAT MIND IN REALITY?"

He does not get the idea of the beyond.

HYAKUJO SAID, "MIND IS WITHOUT FORM AND CHARACTERISTICS. IT IS NEITHER BEYOND NOR NOT BEYOND WORDS AND SPEECH. IT IS FOREVER CLEAR AND STILL AND CAN PERFORM ITS FUNCTION FREELY AND WITHOUT HINDRANCE. THE PATRIARCH SAID, 'IT IS ONLY WHEN THE MIND IS SEEN TO BE UNREAL THAT THE DHARMA OF ALL MINDS CAN BE TRULY UNDERSTOOD.'"

The whole dialogue is between two persons who cannot understand each other. The master, Hyakujo, is speaking as authentically as possible about something which cannot be spoken about.

Anybody in his place, a man like Ma Tzu, would have beaten the monk to give him a little glimpse beyond the mind.

When thoughts stop, when suddenly one hits you, the whole world is in a whirl. Thoughts stop and you are shocked. Even breathing stops: "I was asking a relevant question and what kind of mad master is he? He hits me..." And before you have opened your mind, he hits you again.

Once Ma Tzu hit a person sixty-six times....

Because he was hit, he was shocked and still started opening his mouth. Again another hit... until he stopped opening his mouth, until he understood that this opening of the mouth is creating the whole trouble.

But Ma Tzu was a totally different master, very loving and very compassionate - he had the right to hit.

And as the man became silent, Ma Tzu closed his eyes, the man closed his eyes. Nothing was asked, nothing was said, and everything was understood.

Those sixty-six hits brought the man to the edge of the mind. He must have been an authentic seeker. He did not bother that his head might be broken... He did not care, but went on insisting for another hit until he found some glimpse that prevented him from speaking.

Seeing that he had found some glimpse, and was not going to speak, Ma Tzu closed his eyes. They sat for hours together in silence.

In that silence is the transfer, the transmission.

The man bowed down, touched the feet of Ma Tzu, and he said, "If there were more people like you, so compassionate to hit sixty-six times, the world would have become enlightened."

It was a totally different atmosphere where the hit was not thought to be an insult, it was thought to be a message. What words cannot say, the hit was saying. The hit was saying: "Keep quiet. Be silent. Be utterly silent." And the master goes on hitting. He is saying, "Go on digging deeper and deeper. As I hit you from outside, you hit yourself inside until you reach the life source itself."

Hyakujo depended more on simple dialogue. His contribution is that he did not behave like a mad Zen master, he behaved very normally. He has brought Zen from the mountains to the marketplace.

Naturally he has to behave according to the manners of the market. So the questions all are stupid.

Each question needs a good hit.

To answer, what Hyakujo has replied is that they are concurrent causes. They appear to be very close but they are not one. They can go separate ways; there is nothing to hinder them. Mind can remain empty without thoughts because thoughts are not intrinsically part, of the mind. They come and go; you know they go on coming and going. Your mind is simply a caravanserai in which they stay for a while.

In your whole life how many thoughts have passed in your mind? Exactly the same as the water that has passed down the Ganges. Every mind is concurrent with a flowing river of thoughts.

His answer is so clear that to ask him, "WHAT IS THIS MIND WHICH LIES BEYOND WORDS AND SPEECH?" is absolutely nonsense. He has said, "It is not mind and there is no relationship between speech, and words, and mind." They are two separate phenomena running together at close distance but never meeting. Because it is beyond mind and beyond words and speech, a man of understanding would not have asked, "What is this mind...?" because any answer will be words and speech.

This mind cannot be spoken. This mind can be felt, this mind can be experienced. If the man had asked how to experience this mind which is beyond words and speech, just that simple difference would have made a great difference. That would have proved that the man is really a man of genius.

He understands that something that is beyond words and speech and you are not supposed to ask any question about what it is, because you are forcing the other person to bring something which is beyond speech into speech, beyond words into words.

But Hyakujo was very patient, had to be, because he is working in the marketplace not in a Zen monastery, not amongst authentic seekers but amongst casual inquirers. And one sometimes simply wonders and laughs....

I have been touring this country for thirty years or more. I have found people...

I was going to catch a train. The train stopped for only ten minutes and somebody was holding my hand and saying, "Just tell me, what is TRUTH?"

I said, "It will take a little time and I will miss my train. It is not something that I can give you right now. It will need a certain background within you, then only can I indicate to you what is truth. That cannot be done while my train is moving. Just let me go."

I have found people on the streets. They will stop, they will say, "We don't have much time to meditate but can you just tell us in short what is meditation?" All over the world there are such people who are in a hurry and want the ultimate experience in their hurry, in their haste.

This man did not understand what had been said. If he had even been just a little intelligent, he would have stopped. His stopping may have given him a glimpse. But rather than stopping he asked, "What is this mind which is beyond words and speech?" Hyakujo does not act the way he would have acted with a Zen seeker. This is just a curiositymonger. He answered him, "THERE IS NO MIND BEYOND WORDS AND SPEECH." What he is saying is that beyond words and speech there is no mind.

No-mind is the empty mind.

No-mind is the empty heart.

Nothing can be said about it more than this: that it is empty of what you call mind.

THE MONK SAID, "IF THERE IS NO MIND BEYOND WORDS AND SPEECH, WHAT IS THAT MIND IN REALITY?"

Now, he goes on being more and more stupid. Everything has been answered. If he is really in search he will ask about how to get into this space you are talking about - what device, what method... But he is not asking about either method or device, he is trying to counter the master with another question:

"IF THERE IS NO MIND BEYOND WORDS AND SPEECH, WHAT IS THAT MIND IN REALITY?"

HYAKUJO SAID, "MIND IS WITHOUT FORM AND CHARACTERISTICS. IT IS NEITHER BEYOND NOR NOT BEYOND WORDS AND SPEECH. IT IS FOREVER CLEAR AND STILL, AND CAN PERFORM ITS FUNCTIONS CLEARLY AND WITHOUT HINDRANCE. THE PATRIARCH SAID, 'IT IS ONLY WHEN THE MIND IS SEEN TO BE UNREAL THAT THE DHARMA OF ALL MINDS CAN BE TRULY UNDERSTOOD.'"

It must have been beyond the questioner, but Hyakujo did whatever is possible through language.

He said, "Don't ask about the reality of this mind. It is just a mirror that goes on reflecting all the attributes of existence. It is always clean. You have just never gone close to it."

Hyakujo must have been in a great sadness seeing these people. I myself have talked to millions of people around the world. I used to talk to crowds of fifty thousand people or one hundred thousand people, and I knew that everything was going beyond their heads; they were just sitting there. To get out of the ocean of one thousand people... one hundred thousand people, they would be beaten:

"You are disturbing. Sit down." I used to say to people "If anybody stands up just pull him down."

And people always enjoy such things...! So they always waited for somebody to get up, then it was a virtue to pull him down, hit him one or two slaps - there was no other way.

These people loved me, not because they understood what I was saying, but just because of the way I was saying it. They loved my presence but they were not seekers. They had just taken an opportunity.

Soon I became tired. It was utterly useless because they were listening with one ear, and from the other ear it was going out - that was the men! Women listen with both the ears, and everything goes out from their mouth. Just a little difference! Have you ever seen two women sitting silently together?

The world is so full of gossiping, and you are talking about meditation. It is so juicy to gossip about what is happening in the neighborhood. As far as meditation goes, there is enough time in old age, or even after death. Silently lying down in your grave you can meditate as much as you want.

But right now there is so much happening all around - somebody's wife has escaped, somebody's husband is cheating his wife....

Seeing the situation, that it is almost futile to talk to the crowd, I started gathering a few people. The only way was to drop speaking to the crowds. I would go to a mountain and I would inform people that whoever wanted to come to the mountain for ten days, or seven days, could come and be with me. Naturally, if somebody takes ten days out of his work, he has some interest, it cannot just be curiosity. If he leaves his wife and children and job for ten days, at least he shows a sign that he is not only curious but he really wants to know. That's how the meditation camps began.

But soon I found that meditation camps began creating trouble for me. In Rajasthan, in their assembly, they decided that I should not be allowed into Rajasthan. I had been going to Mount Abu which is in Rajasthan. In Gujarat, at that time, Morarji Desai was the chief minister. He himself proposed to the assembly that my coming to Gujarat should be prohibited. I used to go to Bhavanagar, to Rajkot, to Jamnagar, to Dwarka - and there were a few very beautiful places for camps - Nargol... miles and miles of huge saru trees. The sun never reaches underneath them because on top they are so full of leaves, branches, and they grow very close. And by the side of the sea you can hear the sound of the sea waves and listen - sitting, not together, but scattered in the forest.

So it became a trouble that my camps should be stopped everywhere. Now, my camps were not doing any harm to anybody. And in my camps only people were coming who wanted to come.

Seeing this happening throughout the world, I have come to the conclusion there is no democracy anywhere.

Everywhere there is talk about democracy, freedom of speech, but it is all talk. The moment you find a man who has something to say, you immediately start stopping him. Yes, there is freedom of gossiping but there is no freedom to say the truth. You are free to lie as much as you can. Nobody will prevent you, no government will ever bother about you, but if you start talking about truth...

And even more dangerous is to give people a certain direction so they can move into their own realization. This is very dangerous to all the vested interests.

I had to remain in Poona and have dropped going anywhere - whoever wants to come here can come. This is my way of finding out the authentic seekers who are not interested in mental gymnastics, but are really dying to know what their life springs are - from where they are coming, to where they are going, what is their reality. They don't want any verbal answer; they want an experience.

Hyakujo must have been very sad. I can say it out of my own experience. Thirty years simply wasted, because out of those crowds which I talked to around the country, rarely does anybody come here. Naturally, they have not heard me, they have not felt me, they have not seen that something absolutely important is possible even in their life. Just a little sense of direction has to be given to them.

Those who have been coming here in thousands, from all over the world, are a different category of people. They don't belong to the crowds. They are seekers and searchers, and they are ready to risk their reputation. People are afraid to come here just to save their reputation. To be even associated with me, and they lose their social status. I am a dangerous man. They also become part of the great dangerousness. Nobody knows what the danger is.

Somebody once in a while dares to come in and is shocked why he has missed for so many years.

He may even be living in Poona, he may be passing the gate every day, but just to be associated is dangerous because these people in the Buddha Auditorium don't belong to any religion, don't belong to any nation, don't belong to any stupid ideas of inequality. Here nobody is a man or a woman, nobody is rich or poor. Everybody is in the same boat making every effort to reach to the other shore.

And the other shore is not far away. It needs only a little meditativeness, a little silence. We are touching the other shore every night. It has to be touched many times before you become acquainted with the new space, the new world. Going to the other shore is not just going to the other shore, you will have to leave all that you are on this shore. Only the essential, vital life principle will go to the other shore. Slowly slowly one learns, and slowly slowly one gathers the eyes to see the beauty of the other shore - the tremendous splendor of which we are completely blind. It is so close that it makes me sad. It has always made the people who have reached the other shore very sad - sad about the people who don't even think of the other shore. Even in their dreams they are dreaming stupid things.

A haiku by Basho:

THE PASSING DAYS AND MONTHS ARE ETERNAL TRAVELERS IN TIME.

"The passing days and months are eternal travelers in time."

Why did he write this haiku? Anybody who knows nothing of Zen will not be able to find any meaning in it, but for one who knows the context, the context is the witness.

This haiku is not saying just anything about the witness, but in fact it is saying everything about the witness. It is just like a mirror. Months and days and years are eternal travelers. They go on passing before us, but we are always here and now. We are not traveling. Our whole existence is here and now, always. It does not matter where your body is.

The haiku has meaning only for a meditator. Everything passes on. It is a caravan of stars, of days, of months, of years, of seasons, but you, you simply remain here, silently watching the whole procession.

This center that never moves is the center, not only of you, but of the whole existence. The whole existence is moving on this center. Knowing this, you settle. You have found your whole, you relax.

All desires disappear, all ambitions disappear. There is nowhere to go and there is nothing to be achieved. Everything is as it should be.

In the moment when you experience this - that everything is as it should be - you become a buddha.

This is what we call enlightenment.

Question 1:

Maneesha has asked:

Maneesha, you are asking, "You won't break our hearts..." I will do. But not in the sense YOU mean.

I will break your hearts in my presence.

Your hearts are closed. Their doors have never been open for centuries. So much dust has gathered, so many cobwebs. I am going to break all that so that you can find the emptiness of your heart. But your idea is totally different. You say, "You won't break our hearts and return to your room, never to venture out again, will you?"

Unfortunately I cannot promise that. I would love to give you the promise, but you know I am a contradictory man, so my promise does not make any sense. I cannot promise you anything.

I will try my best to go on coming every day, and it is possible only now that such a promise even can be fulfilled, because I don't think that the world is going to last more than twelve years. Seeing the stupidity of the politicians and the priests and the so-called leaders of the world, it seems to be absolutely certain that they will destroy this planet - they are bent upon it. Everything is being done with tremendous speed to destroy this planet. So perhaps twelve years are not too much. Avirbhava can wait on the gate. Sardar Gurudayal Singh can continue laughing.

This time, if you all get ripe, if you all can understand something beyond life and death, then we will all go together - with Avirbhava and all! And it will be really great fun. It is certain, if there is any hell, we are going to it. Avirbhava can scream, sitting on the bonnet of my Rolls Royce; Sardarji can be sitting behind, laughing, and the whole caravan can go and take over Hell because the Devil has ruled enough. It needs immediate revolution and change. If we cannot change this world, we will change some world anyway.

(AT THIS POINT THERE IS A MOMENT'S BLACKOUT) The Devil became worried! One thing is certain that God never created electricity. In no scripture of any religion, is God supposed to have created electricity. Obviously, it is a creation of Devil. So, he gave us a signal: "Don't harass me; go the other way!" He would love that our caravan enters Heaven, but we are not interested in Heaven with all those dirty saints, old hippies... most of them naked, doing all kinds of distortions of the body. Somebody is standing on the head... and they all have become shrunken, just skeletons. They don't have anything else to do except play on the harp and sing Hallelujiah. My people cannot do that for eternity.

You will not find a Gautam Buddha in Heaven, or a Ma Tzu, or a Hyakujo, or a Bertrand Russell, or a Jean-Paul Sartre, or Mozart, or Dostoevski. You will not find a single genius, a single artist, a single mystic - they are all in Hell. And they have made Hell so beautiful. And our people reaching there with joy and laughter - that is the only thing that is missing. What is the point of going to Heaven?

The real work is in Hell - to transform millions of people who have been forced there for eternity, for small things.

Bertrand Russell has written in his autobiography, "I cannot understand the idea of Christianity that sinners will suffer for eternity in Hell." How many sins can you commit to deserve a punishment for eternity? Even if every moment, day and night, you commit this sin and that sin... What are the sins? - drinking a cup of tea, smoking a cigarette, falling in love with a dangerous woman, very nice looking... Never go for the looks, the reality is always different. Great philosophers have been writing about appearance and reality.

Russell says, "One day I counted how many sins I had committed, and I also counted the sins that I wanted to commit but the opportunities did not allow me. On both I could get at least four and a half years of jail from a very strict judge, but eternity is too much. And they say God is compassionate!"

All the great people of the world, creative in any direction, have been thrown in Hell. The stupid and idiotic saints who don't know anything of creativity, who don't know anything of meditation, whose whole art is how to torture themselves and others, these people are there, all sick and psychologically mad, in Heaven. I have always suspected that God himself must have changed his place to Hell! Living with these idiots and not one...

Strange people will drive anybody mad. You just think about the saints, what kinds of saints....

I saw one saint who had not taken any position other than standing for twelve years. His legs had become like elephant legs. His upper body had shrunk and become very small, and he was holding a bamboo. To keep him entertained, his disciples would go on singing day and night around him. I was passing by the road. Somebody told me that here there was a great saint, so I went to see him.

That man was torturing himself, and people were enjoying his torture.

I have seen saints dying through will. That means not eating for ninety days. Only after ninety days will your flesh be used up. You will remain just a skeleton. And they are worshipped by thousands of people.... These skeletons - their only quality is that they can torture themselves. There are from different parts of the world, different varieties.

Heaven must be a circus. Nobody who is sane can survive there. And the fence is so ancient that it is broken almost everywhere. I have never heard about anybody trespassing over the ancient fence from the side of Hell to the side of Heaven. Nobody wants to go to Heaven. Just to see from the outside, from the broken fence, is enough. So much stupidity is happening there. All the descriptions of Heaven are so rotten, so ugly.

So don't be worried, Maneesha. Most probably the whole Buddha Auditorium will shoot directly, as a missile, towards Hell. Just cling to each other so nobody is left behind. And twelve years is not a long time. I can keep the promise.

Now, it is Anando's time....

Little Albert's mother cannot bring herself to tell the little boy that his dog, Laddy, has just been run over by a car and killed.

When Albert comes home from school she talks of other things for a few minutes, but finally, she says, "Albert, listen. Laddy has been run over and killed by an automobile."

"Oh!" says the boy, and goes out to play, whistling.

At dinner, Little Albert asks, "Hey, Mom, where is Laddy?"

"Darling," says his mother, "I told you this afternoon: Laddy has been killed by a car."

Suddenly, Albert bursts into tears.

"But Albert," cries his mother, "when I told you this afternoon, it did not seem to bother you."

"No," sniffs Albert, "it didn't - because I thought you said Daddy!"

Pope the Polack is giving High Mass in Saint Peter's Cathedral in Rome. The mass is coming to an end, and the Polack pope is leading the procession out into Saint Peter's Square to bless the crowd.

Suddenly, as the cathedral clock strikes three, the big hand falls off the clock, sails through the air, and lands on the pope's head with a resounding crack!

Pope the Polack falls senseless to the ground, and is rushed to the hospital suffering from concussion.

The next morning, throughout the world anxious Catholics wait to buy their morning newspapers to find out the latest news.

The Vatican News is first off the press, and carries the banner headline: POPE'S HEAD X-RAYED REVEALS NOTHING!

Max Muldoon is walking in the Oregon hills, when it begins to snow and he goes to a nearby ranch house for shelter. There he meets Ed, the rancher, his pretty young wife and her daughter.

"You can stay here the night," says Ed, "but we have only got one bed. So we will have to sleep next to each other, head to toe.

"And I am warning you," continues Ed, "no funny business!" Then he waves a big six shooter at Max, and puts it under his pillow and falls asleep.

In the middle of the night, the daughter, who is lying next to Max, slides her hand up his leg and begins to fondle him.

Max points nervously to where the gun is hidden under Ed's pillow.

"Don't worry," whispers the daughter, "it is not loaded," and she pulls Max onto her.

Later on, Ed's wife, who has been watching this, points at the gun, and says softly, "It is not loaded!"

And then she climbs over on top of Max.

Ed snores on peacefully.

A few minutes later, the daughter slides her hand up Max's leg again.

Max points at his prick and says, "It is not loaded!"

Nivedano...

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

Close your eyes.

Feel your body to be completely frozen.

Now, collect all your consciousness and look inwards, as deep as you can. Make the consciousness just like an arrow that goes to the target. The target is the center of your being.

To be at the being, to the very center of your life, you are also at the very center of the universe.

From this silence, from this nothingness, everything arises, all the flowers and all the stars and all the buddhas.

To be at this center is to have reached to the last milestone of a long journey of thousands of lives.

To be a buddha is the end of the road.

Finally, the buddha jumps beyond himself and disappears into the universal energy, and melts just like ice melts.

The evening has been so beautiful, and your being silent, sitting like buddhas has made it a great splendor.

To deepen the splendor...

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat) Relax, just witnessing your body, your mind and everything. You are just a mirror and nothing else.

Rejoice this silence.

Rejoice this intensity of peace.

Let your every fiber, every cell be filled with the life juice you have entered in.

Be completely soaked, drenched, so when you come back, you bring the buddha with you.

The buddha has to be in your actions, in your words, in your silences, in your speech.

Remember only one thing: you have been a buddha forever. It is not something new, but only a new revelation.

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat) Come back, but come back with the buddha deep in your empty heart, gracefully, silently.

Sit down, just for a few moments of recollection, remembering the path you have been, the space you entered, the tremendous experience of being a buddha. The remembrance should go on echoing in you around the clock.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

Can we celebrate the ten thousand buddhas?

Yes, Osho!