The watcher is always in the now

Question 1:

Masti, mind is confusion; it is not that you are in confusion. And there is no way for the mind to be not in confusion. Mind's whole structure is based on confusion.

Mind is a duality; it is always split. There is no single point on which the mind agrees in totality. Half of the mind will agree and half of the mind will disagree, and whatever you choose, you are choosing only the half. The remaining half is going to take revenge. The unchosen part, the left over, will wait for its chance to show you that whatever you have chosen is wrong. But it does not matter which part you choose. Choice itself is wrong.

So the first thing to be understood is that there is no mind which has ever been without confusion.

One very learned American rabbi, Joshua Liebman, has written a book, PEACE OF MIND. It is one of the best-sellers: Liebman is a good writer, and the book is well presented.

I wrote him a letter, asking, "Have you ever considered that peace of mind has never existed? Peace of mind is intrinsically impossible. Peace happens only when mind is not. It is not peace of mind; it is peace beyond mind."

It is almost like a lotus flower: it grows in mud and water; it is a miracle of nature that out of dirty mud and water it brings out one of the most beautiful flowers in existence. But mud and water are not the lotus flower. The lotus flower blossoms only when the lotus plant has gone beyond the mud, beyond the water, has transcended both -- then it opens up to the sun, to the sky, and releases its fragrance to the wind. Although it comes from the mud, it is not mud anymore. It is transcendence.

The same is true about peace. Mind is muddy; all kinds of relevant and irrelevant thoughts are jumbled there. It is a crowd, with so many fragments fighting with each other that you can call it a battleground. Mind cannot be at peace. But you can go beyond mind because you are not the mind. You can transcend and become a lotus flower. And then there is peace, there is beauty, there is bliss, and all that you have always dreamt about but have had no experience of.

The watcher is always in the now I will read your question: "There is a confusion in me that keeps coming again and again."

Unless you resolve it, it does not have to come, it is always there. It is only that whenever you are unoccupied, it surfaces. It does not go and come, it is embedded in your mind.

"The message I have got from You more and more is to relax with myself, to watch and wait." The message remains the same, because that is the only way to transcend the mind. The watcher is always above the mind. The watcher is never part of the mind.

The mind is just like a TV screen on which thoughts, dreams, imaginations, projections, desires, and a thousand and one things go on passing. The watcher is not on the screen, he is sitting in the movie hall. But the problem arises when the watcher becomes identified with something on the movie screen.

You must have seen yourself sometimes crying, sometimes laughing, sometimes becoming sad... and you know perfectly well that there is nothing on the screen. It is empty, and all that you are seeing is only a projection, just a film being projected through light.

I have heard that when for the first time the silent movies came into existence, the first show happened in London, and a man watched the movie in the matinee showing. Everybody left, but he remained. The manager came to him and said, "The show is over."

He said, "I want to see the second show also." The manager said, "What is the point? You have seen it."

He said, "It is none of your business. This is the money for the ticket. I am not going to leave."

He saw the second show, and the manager was thinking, "What happens after the second show?" He came back again; the crowd had gone, but the man was still there, because there was still a third show. The manager said, "Do you want to see the third show also?" He said, "Yes. This is the money."

The manager said, "But you have seen it twice!" He said, "You don't understand a thing.

There is a scene in which a beautiful woman is undressing. She is just about to become nude and jump into a beautiful lake to swim. At that very moment a train passes by, and that train becomes a curtain, and when the train has gone, the woman is already in the water."

The manager said, "But I still don't understand the point."

The man said, "The point is, the train is going to be late sometime!"

Now the projected film has taken on a reality in his mind. He has become identified; it is no longer a film, he is part of it. He is not waiting, he is not watching; he is participating.

It happened that one of India's very learned men, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was invited to inaugurate a drama. He inaugurated the drama, and of course he was sitting in front.

In the drama there is a character -- a very cunning man, ugly and disgusting -- who is after a beautiful woman, harassing her in every possible way. And one day he finds the woman alone, passing on a path that moves through a thick forest. He takes the opportunity, catches hold of the woman -- he wants to rape her. This was too much: Vidyasagar completely forgot that it was a drama. He jumped on the stage, took out one of his shoes, and started beating the poor character, the actor!

But the actor proved to be far wiser than Vidyasagar. He took the shoe in his hands with great respect, touched the shoe to his head, and told Vidyasagar, "This is my greatest prize. I

The watcher is always in the now have been winning many prizes in my life, but this is my greatest prize. I could have never believed that a man of your understanding should take a drama as if it were real."

Vidyasagar woke up as if from a sleep. He said, "I am sorry, but I went on becoming hotter and hotter, and when I saw that you were going to rape the woman I could not resist the temptation to prevent you. It was my moral duty, and I completely forgot that this is not a real rape, it is just acting."

I have seen the shoe. In the family of that actor, they are keeping it in a beautiful glass box.

It has become a historical thing. Now it must be the fourth or fifth generation, but they say, "This is our most prized treasure. One of our forefathers received this award from the hands of Vidyasagar himself." And certainly this proves that the man was a perfect actor: he created the situation such that Vidyasagar became identified and forgot it was just a drama and he was there to watch it, not to participate in it.

This is happening continuously in your mind. The whole confusion is that you jump into the drama of the mind, which is just a screen.

I have been telling you again and again just to watch. Every drama has its end, and no thought in the mind remains for long. If you can keep alert not to become a victim of your thoughts, soon less and less thoughts will be moving on the screen. And when the watching becomes perfect, the screen becomes empty. When you are ready to witness, there is nothing to witness.

It is your identification with thoughts that is creating the confusion: it brings you down into the mind; otherwise your watcher is far above it. And to get centered in your watching is the only way for peace.

There is no such thing as peace of mind.

There is only one peace, and that is when there is no mind. When there is only a watcher and nothing to watch, suddenly everything becomes calm and quiet.

Hence I repeat again, Masti: relax, watch, and wait patiently. But you are saying, "I also feel this urgency to wake up now." That's what I mean by jumping into the drama and becoming a participant. The watcher is always in the now. The watcher knows no other tense -- neither past nor future, but only the present.

Only this moment is all for the watcher. It is the imagination that needs future, it is memory that needs past, but the watcher is neither imagination nor memory. It is always in the now.

And your urgency is simply another name for impatience. You are hiding your impatience behind a beautiful word, urgency. What urgency is there?

You cannot force things to happen before their time. The spring will come and the flowers will blossom, but you cannot force the spring. The rain will come, the clouds will cover the sky, the whole thirst of the earth will be gone -- but you cannot force it, you have to be patient.

And this is the beauty, that the more patient you are, the quicker is the coming of the spring. If you can be absolutely patient, this very moment spring can come.

Your urgency is creating a trouble for you because it is making you more and more confused, more and more restless, in a hurry. I can understand; the whole Western tradition has taught you only one thing, and that is speed.

The watcher is always in the now I have heard about a pilot who was a lover of flying. He had taken his girlfriend for a flight, and he was going at full speed, maximum. The girl was a little afraid. Finally she asked, "Where are we going?"

The pilot said, "Don't ask unnecessary questions. The real question is, we are going at full speed. Who cares where we are going? The going in itself is so good."

The speed has become such a problem because for centuries in the West the mind has been conditioned to do things quickly: "Don't be lazy, be efficient." But all this has created a turmoil in the mind.

Everybody is trying to become rich as quickly as possible, and naturally if you want to be rich quickly you have to find some immoral means -- maybe heroin money. All the Western religious leaders are against drugs, but they don't understand that the idea of speed, that everybody has to be fast enough... and millions are competing for the same place; naturally there is competition, there is jealousy, there is violence. It does not matter, means don't matter; the end is to reach quickly -- either to a powerful position, or to become world famous, or to have all the riches possible.

But these trees don't grow impatiently. They move with a grace, with patience, with trust.

There is no hurry anywhere else except in your mind. If you really want to be in a state of peace and joy, you will have to unlearn your old habit for achieving things quickly, fast.

Just the other day I was informed that in Japan, they have invented a train that moves four hundred miles per hour. Up to now the record was two hundred fifty miles per hour; they have broken all records. And because the train moves four hundred miles per hour the very speed of the train creates a cushion of air, and raises the train above its rails one foot. It is no longer on the rails. It is very comfortable because it is moving in the air, almost like an airplane, just one foot above the earth.

And they forgot completely that Japan is such a small country. They have recognized it only now, and for years they have been inventing the train. Now they have recognized -- where are we going? -- because the country is so small that you can have at the most two stations: one from where the train begins and the other where it stops. So the train is now ready, but the land is not big enough to use it! But one wonders... for years they have been working and they never thought about the fact that four hundred miles in Japan is absurd.

Japan consists of two small islands. Where will you be going with such speed?

You are saying, "And then another part screams, 'but how?'" Urgency naturally creates the question: "How?" If speed is needed, then the technology is needed. "How" means technology.

Meditation is not a by-product of any technology. It does not need any technology.

It does not need any "how."

It simply needs now.

And in meditation you are not going anywhere. You are simply being here, relaxed, utterly centered in yourself. Everything stops. For this, no "how" is needed.

But because one question leads to another question, urgency creates the question "how," and then the question comes: "What do I need to do? Do I need to push myself through this wall?"

There is no wall!

The watcher is always in the now These are our unconscious confusions. Somehow we make them appear rational.

One drunkard reached his home one night. His wife was tired -- every day a fight in the middle of the night, and the whole neighborhood was complaining. The man was not going to change. So she had given him the keys, saying, "Don't wake me up and don't create any noise, because the neighbors are getting very angry. They want to throw us out. So silently open the door and go to your bed."

He came in the middle of the night, absolutely drunk. His hands were shaking, so he was holding the key, but to put the key in the lock was a problem. He kept missing the target. He said, "This is strange. This has never happened; certainly there must be an earthquake, the whole house is in such trembling state."

Rather than looking at his own hands, rather than remembering his own drunkenness, the whole earth is having a great earthquake and the house is moving -- that's why the lock is moving.

A policeman was watching him from the street. He laughed. He came and he said, "Can I help you?" The man said, "It would be great of you if you could help me. Just hold the house for a moment so that I can put this key into the lock."

The policeman said, "It is better that you give me the key and I will open the lock." There was no need to argue with him that the house is not shaking, that there is no earthquake happening, that it is simply that you are absolutely unconscious.

The man entered the house very cautiously because the wife has said... And whenever a drunkard comes close to his wife, half of his drunkenness is gone. The wife is such a cure...

nothing else works, but the closeness of the wife is enough.

She was snoring in her room. He remembered what she had said: "Don't create any noise."

So silently he went into the bathroom, but he was very much puzzled because his whole face was scratched. There was blood oozing from a few places.

Then he remembered that on the way home he had been fighting with another drunkard. So he tried to find some ointment to put on his face; otherwise the wife in the morning will create trouble for him. So very carefully and silently, he put the ointment on every scratch. He was very satisfied, and went silently to bed.

In the morning the wife screamed from the bathroom, "Who has spoiled my mirror, and destroyed my ointment too? Who has painted the mirror with the ointment?"

He said, "My god..." He had thought he was putting the ointment on his face, but he was putting it on the reflection of his face; he was putting it on the mirror.

The unconscious mind goes on doing things and creating problems. There is no wall at all that you have to push through. The real thing is that you want to push, you are in a hurry. And because you want to push, you have to imagine a wall. It is your imagination.

Just try to laugh at your imagination, at your hurry, because this is not the way meditation happens. Laugh, relax, and just be in the moment -- watching whatever is going on, outside or inside, in the world or in the mind. You are neither the world nor the mind. You are behind all, just a pure watching consciousness.

You are asking me, "Could you make this clear to me?" There is nothing to be made clear.

Only one thing is harassing you: your own idea of achieving things as quickly as possible. But

The watcher is always in the now meditation is not to be achieved; it is already there. It has only to be discovered. And discovery needs only one thing: a silent watcher -- just for your laughter, so that you can relax.

Don't be serious; meditation is not a serious affair. Don't try to be a saint; meditation has nothing to do with pious egoism. Meditation is as simple as these trees growing, these birds singing.

One night in Washington, when Nixon was president, there was a heavy snowfall. When the president woke up in the morning, he looked out of the window and saw a beautiful blanket of snow covering the White House lawn. He snapped out of his beautiful reverie when he noticed, written on the lawn in yellow snow, "Dick Nixon is an asshole."

The president got very angry and summoned the FBI and CIA. "I want that urine to be analyzed," he ordered them. "And I want to find out who the culprit is right now, without delay! This is top priority!"

Early in the afternoon a representative of the two agencies reported back to Nixon. He said, "We have tested the urine and we know whose it is. However, there is some good news and some bad news; which would you like first?"

"Oh no," said Nixon. "Guess you had better give me the good news first."

"Well, sir," said the man. "We analyzed the urine, and it is Henry Kissinger's."

"Oh no," cried Nixon, and then suddenly the realization hit him. "That's the good news?

What could the bad news possibly be?"

The man answered him, "It was in your wife's handwriting."

Question 2:

Yogeshwar, your individuality can be divided -- just for the purpose of understanding it; otherwise there is no division. It is one single unity, whole: the head, the heart, and the being.

Intellect is the functioning of the head, instinct is the functioning of your body, intuition is the functioning of your heart. And behind these three is your being, whose only quality is witnessing.

The head only thinks; hence it never comes to any conclusion. It is verbal, linguistic, logical, but because it has no roots in reality, thousands of years of philosophical thinking have not given us a single conclusion. Philosophy has been the greatest exercise in futility.

Intellect is very clever in creating questions and then creating answers, and then out of those answers, more questions and more answers. It can make palaces of words, systems of theories, but they are all just hot air.

The body cannot rely on your intellect, because the body has to live. That's why all essential functions of the body are in the hands of instinct -- for example breathing, heartbeat, digestion of your food, circulation of the blood -- a thousand and one processes are going inside your body in which you have no part at all. And it is good that nature has given body its

The watcher is always in the now own wisdom. Otherwise, if your intellect were to take care of the body, life would have been impossible. Because sometimes you may forget to breathe -- at least in the night, how will you breathe while you are asleep?

You are already so confused just with thoughts; in this confusion, who will take care about the blood circulation -- whether right amount of oxygen is reaching to your cells or not?

Whether the food that you are eating is being analyzed into its basic constituents, and those basic constituents are sent where they are needed? Something is needed by your bones, it goes to the bones; something is needed by your brain, it goes to the brain; something is needed by your skin, it goes to the skin. And continuously, twenty-four hours, dead cells have to be removed; otherwise they will block the passage of blood circulation.

You may never have thought about it; when you cut your hair, why don't you feel pain?

Cut your fingers and you will feel pain. Hairs are also part of your body, just as your fingers, but why don't you feel any pain when cutting your hair? Hairs are the dead cells of the body; that's why you don't feel hurt. Nails are also made of dead cells of the body; that's why you can cut them. And this whole, tremendous amount of work is done by instinct. You are not needed. You can remain in a coma; still the body will continue to work.

I have seen one woman who was in a coma for nine months. The doctors had said that she would never revive, and even if she did revive, she would not be a human being, because such a long period of unconsciousness destroys the very delicate nervous system that makes you a human being, that gives you intelligence. So she would be just a vegetable. But her body was functioning perfectly well. Her intellect had disappeared, her consciousness had not been there for nine months, but her body was perfectly well; there was no disease in the body.

Nature has left all essential functions of your body to instinct. And it has left all that makes your life meaningful -- because just to exist, just to survive, has no meaning... to give meaning to your life, existence has given to your heart, intuition. Out of your intuition is the possibility of art, of aesthetics, of love, of friendship -- all kinds of creativity is intuitive.

But the marketplace does not need your intuition. It does not deal in love, in your sensibility; it deals with very solid and mundane things. For that, your intellect, which is the most superficial part, functions. Intellect is for the mundane life with others in the marketplace, in the world, to make you capable of functioning. It is mathematics, it is geography, it is history, it is chemistry. All science and all technology is created by your intellect.

Your logic, your geometry, are useful, but the intellect is blind. It simply goes on creating things, but it does not know whether they are being used for destruction or for creation. The nuclear war will be a war created by intellect.

Intellect has its use, but by some misfortune it has become the master of your whole being.

That has created immense troubles in the world.

The master is hidden behind these three: the body, the mind, the heart. The master is hidden behind all these three -- that is your being. But you never go inwards; all your roads go outwards, all your senses go outwards. All your achievements are there in the world.

Only very few people in the world have traveled the path towards their being, towards their very center. When I insist that you should be only a watcher, only a witness, I am trying to bring you closer to your own being, because that is your life source -- and a life source which is eternal and immortal. Knowing it, all fears disappear, because even death disappears.

The watcher is always in the now Knowing it, you know the very heartbeat of existence.

Knowing it, you have known all that is worth knowing, and you have achieved all that is worth achieving. It opens doors to all the mysteries of existence, to all the treasures of existence which belong to you.

Outside you are simply a beggar. Even your greatest intellectuals are just playing with words.

The father of Western logic, Aristotle, has written in his books on logic that women have one tooth less than men. That was traditionally thought to be true for thousands of years in Greece, because a woman cannot be equal in any way -- how can she have the same number of teeth as man? And Aristotle -- who is the father of logic -- had two wives, not only one. He could have simply told Mrs. Aristotle Number One or Number Two, "Open your mouth, I want to count your teeth." But philosophers are not experimental. He has written that women have one tooth less than men. They have to have less of everything than men.

Intellect is useful in the world, and all your educational systems are techniques to avoid the heart and take your energy directly to your head. The heart can create troubles for the head.

The heart knows nothing of logic. The heart has a totally different center of functioning, and that is intuition. It knows love, but love is not a commodity of any use in the world. It knows beauty, but what are you going to do with beauty in the marketplace?

The people of the heart -- the painters, the poets, the musicians, the dancers, the actors -- are all irrational. They create great beauty, they are great lovers, but they are absolutely unfit in a society which is arranged by the head. Your artists are thought by your society to be almost outcast, a little bit crazy, an insane type of people. Nobody wants their children to become musicians or painters or dancers. They all want them to be doctors, engineers, scientists, because those professions pay. Painting, poetry, dance, are dangerous, risky: you may end up just a beggar on the street, playing on your flute.

The heart has been denied, and by the way, it will be useful to remember: the denial of the heart has been the denial of the woman, and unless the heart is accepted, the woman cannot be accepted. Unless the heart has the same opportunity to grow as the head, the woman cannot have liberation. The woman is heart and the man is head. The distinction is clear.

Instinct, nature has taken in its own hands, and whenever you interfere with instinct you create perversions. All the religions have been doing that. For example, celibacy is interfering with the body and its instinct; then there will be homosexuality, lesbianism, all kinds of perversions. But every religion has been interfering with the body -- and the body is absolutely innocent; it has never done anything wrong.

If you accept the body in its absolute naturalness, it will help you tremendously. It will help your heart, nourish your heart. It will help your intelligence to become sharper, because the nourishment for the intellect comes from the body. Nourishment to the heart comes from the body. And if your head, your heart and your body are all in a symphony, then to find your being is the easiest thing in the world. But because they are in conflict, your whole life goes on being wasted in that conflict, conflict between instinct and intellect and intuition.

A wise man is one who creates a harmony between head, heart, and body. In this harmony one comes to the revelation of the source of one's life, the very center, the soul. And that is the greatest ecstasy possible -- not only to human beings but in this whole universe, nothing more is possible. It is already too much.

The watcher is always in the now I am not against anything. I am only against disharmony, and because your head is creating the most inharmonious situation, I want your head to be put in its right place. It is a servant, not a master. As a servant it is great, very helpful.

A Dublin milkman has just finished his delivery, so he parks his horse and cart outside the pub and goes in for a drink. Refreshed after an hour, he comes out to find his horse painted bright green. Very angry, he strides back into the pub and demands, "Which of you just painted my horse green?"

A seven foot Irish giant stood up and, towering over him, said, "I did. Want to do something about it?"

The milkman gave a sickly grin and said, "I just came in to tell you, the first coat is dry!"

Intellect is helpful. There are situations where you will be in need of intellect -- but only as a servant, not as a master.

Two psychiatrists who are friends happen to run into each other on the street one day. One of them says to the other, "You are fine, how am I doing?"

Intellect can be helpful, but it needs consciousness to be its master; otherwise it can behave in a very stupid way. It can misunderstand things, it can misrepresent things. It needs a master to guide it, to give it a sense of direction. That master is your being.

Valerie, a twenty-three-year-old typist, walked along the beach, despondent. She was flat-chested, and felt totally distraught watching the other big-bosomed girls on the beach surrounded by eligible men. As Valerie strolled on the sand her toe kicked a small bottle. She picked it up and removed the cork, and out popped a genie. "Who are you?" asked the frightened girl.

"I am a genie, and because you were kind enough to give me my freedom, I will grant you any wish you make."

"Oh, that's wonderful," declared Valerie. "I would like the two biggest boobs in the world."

The genie snapped his fingers and there appeared Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.