All arrows converge on this

Maneesha, this is the last discourse of the series called, THIS. THIS. A THOUSAND TIMES THIS...

is the essence of existence, is the essence of your being, is the essence of Zen - this.

This is vast: a small word, it contains total, universal, eternal truth.

There are no boundaries to this.

It never begins and it never ends.

It is always here.

You can wander here and there, but it is just like a fish moving in the ocean; it is the same ocean wherever it goes. You can be a child, you can be young, you can be old, you can be dead, but this remains an eternal truth of your being. Alive or dead, you cannot get rid of this.

This essential point is being discussed again and again by Zen masters. In different ways they have sung their song, in different ways they have signed their signatures; but only the ways differ, all their arrows converge on this. We will see how it has been repeated and why it has been repeated - why for thousands of years those who have known, either said this, or remained silent in thisness.

But whatever the case, whether they say it or not, they are pointing to this by words, by silence, by dance, by music, by just being.

Remember Basho, the great master:

SITTING SILENTLY,

DOING NOTHING,

THE SPRING COMES,

AND THE GRASS GROWS BY ITSELF.

Everything is happening on its own; it is only the insanity of man that makes him concerned and worried - makes him almost mad, running after power, position, domination. But even the richest man of the world is poorer than these bamboos surrounding Buddha Hall, because these bamboos are enough unto themselves and the richest man is still hungry.

Before I enter into this dialogue, I would like to tell you a small story:

A beggar knocks on the doors of an emperor; it is early morning, even a little dark, the sun has not yet come over the horizon. The emperor was coming out for a morning walk in his beautiful garden; otherwise it would have been difficult for the beggar to have an appointment with him. But there was no mediator to prevent him.

The emperor said, "What do you want?"

The beggar said, "Before you ask that, think twice!"

The emperor had never seen such a lion of a man; he has fought wars, has won victories, has made it clear that nobody is more powerful than him, but suddenly this beggar says to him, "Think twice of what you are saying, because you may not be able to fulfill it!"

The king said, "Don't be worried, that is my concern; you ask what you want, it will be done!"

The beggar laughed... the emperor could not understand the laughter.

The beggar said, "You see my begging bowl? I want it to be filled! It does not matter with what, the only condition is that it should be filled, it should be full. You can still say no, but if you say yes, then you are taking a risk."

The emperor's time to laugh had come, because a beggar's bowl... and he is being given a condition!

He told his premier to fill the beggar's bowl with diamonds, so that this beggar can know who he is asking.

The beggar again said, "Think twice."

And soon it became apparent that the beggar was right, because the moment the diamonds were poured into his begging bowl, they simply disappeared. More diamonds, more emeralds, more rubies - the king had tremendous treasures, but within hours everything was gone and the begging bowl was still empty.

The word spread like wildfire in the capital; thousands of people arrived to see this miraculous incident. When the precious stones were finished, the king said, "Bring out all the gold and silver, everything! My whole kingdom is at stake, my whole integrity is being challenged."

But by the evening everything had disappeared in the beggar's bowl and there were only two beggars left - one used to be the emperor.

The emperor said, "Before I touch your feet and ask your forgiveness for not listening to your warning to think twice, just please tell me the secret of this begging bowl."

The beggar said, "There is no secret. I found this begging bowl on a funeral ground, it is a human skull. I have polished it, made it look like a bowl. I am a poor man, I cannot even purchase a bowl, but because it is a human skull, you go on pouring anything into it and it disappears."

The story is tremendously meaningful. Have you ever thought about your own begging bowl?

Everything disappears: power, prestige, respectability, riches, everything disappears and your begging bowl goes on opening its mouth for more and more. And because of this continuous effort for more, you go on missing this. The "more" takes you away from this. The desire, the longing for something else takes you away from this moment.

And there are only two kinds of people in the world: the majority is running after shadows, they will never be fulfilled. Their begging bowls will remain with them till they enter their graves.

And a very small minority, one in a million, stops running, just remains standing here and now, drops all desires, asks for nothing and suddenly he finds everything within himself.

This is the door of the kingdom of God.

TOZAN SAID TO UNGAN, "MASTER, IF SOMEONE ASKS ME A HUNDRED YEARS AFTERWARDS WHAT I THOUGHT WAS YOUR DEEPEST UNDERSTANDING, WHAT SHOULD I SAY?"

Every disciple has, once in a while, become interested to ask the master, "When you are gone, if somebody asks me, 'What was his teaching in essence,' what am I supposed to say?"

UNGAN ANSWERED, "TELL HIM I SAID, 'IT IS SIMPLY THIS.'"

THIS is not a word, but an existential moment. You will not find it in the dictionary, you will find it in existence.

TOZAN WAS SILENT FOR A TIME, AND UNGAN SAID, "TOZAN, IF YOU HAVE GRASPED THIS, YOU MUST CARRY IT OUT IN DETAIL!"

TOZAN WAS STILL SILENT. UNGAN STRUCK HIM.

... Because this cannot be more than it is. There are no details. It is the simplest silent space, nothing can be said about it. Because Tozan did not say anything, his master, Ungan, in appraisal, struck him. By striking disciples Zen masters have been saying to them, "You have understood, have it as a prize!"

SOME YEARS LATER, WHEN TOZAN WAS HOLDING A SERVICE IN MEMORY OF UNGAN'S DEEPEST UNDERSTANDING, A MONK SAID TO HIM, "THE DEAD TEACHER SAID, 'IT IS SIMPLY THIS!'" THE MONK THEN ADDED: "IS THIS THE YES-SAYING SPIRIT?"

"IT IS," REPLIED TOZAN.

THE MONK ASKED, "WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?"

TOZAN SAID, "AT THE TIME UNGAN SAID THAT, MY IDEA WAS ALMOST ENTIRELY A MISTAKEN ONE, THOUGH I UNDERSTOOD WHAT HE MEANT ALL RIGHT."

THIS is not a word, hence it cannot have any meaning. You can live it, but you cannot mean anything by it.

It is simply a roseflower, unobserved, unrecognized, unpraised, unknown, opening its petals and sharing its fragrance to the winds for no other reason than that this is its nature.

"THE DEAD TEACHER," SAID THE MONK, "DID HE KNOW IT, OR NOT?"... because it is very possible that you can repeat words which are dead on your lips. They may have been alive on somebody else's.

Tozan said something tremendously beautiful. He said, "IF HE DID NOT, HOW COULD HE SAY SUCH A THING?"

He was such an honest, integrated being, he would not have said anything that he did not know.

"AND IF HE DID, HOW COULD HE AVOID SAYING IT?"

This is the eternal problem Zen has encountered: if you know, you cannot say it; and if you know you cannot avoid saying it. The experience is such that intrinsically, it wants to be shared. If you don't know, of course you cannot say it. But if you know, then too you cannot say it; and at the same time you cannot avoid saying it.

Lao Tzu did not say a single word to his disciples - and he had thousands of disciples. Those were the golden days: a thousand disciples sitting with Lao Tzu in utter silence, day by day, year by year - nothing is asked, nothing is answered. Everybody knows this is, and there is no need to give it an expression; because the moment you express it, it is no more the real, it has become unreal, just a shadow, a false reflection in a mirror. Howsoever real it looks, it is only appearance.

Have you seen your face in the mirror? It is there, in every detail; but you know perfectly well it is not there, it is only a shadow. But to small children sometimes it happens... to very small children, still uncorrupted. If you bring a mirror in front of them, they look at the child on the other side, they try to grab hold of the child with their tiny hands, they go on slipping on the mirror. They cannot resist the temptation to find who is behind it. They try to go to the back, behind the mirror to find the child. Of course there is nobody, it was their own reflection.

All that has been said about truth is only a reflection in the mirror.

Lao Tzu avoided saying anything. He avoided writing anything and when he was eighty years old, he left towards the Himalayas to rest in eternity; in the deepest silence of the eternal snow of Himalayan peaks.

The emperor of China ordered all the guards around the country to block all the roads, saying that: "Lao Tzu should not be allowed to go out unless he writes down his experience for future generations."

He was caught hold of before he crossed the borders - respectfully. The guard said, "I am not in any way being disrespectful to you, I am simply following orders. The orders are that you have to remain in my cottage - there is no other place here - and write down your essential experience. Unless you do it, I cannot allow you out of the country, I cannot allow you to cross the borders."

The emperor himself was a disciple of Lao Tzu. Under such circumstances Lao Tzu wrote a small booklet, but the first sentence is all that he really has been not saying all his long life - for eighty years. The first sentence was, "Truth is, but the moment you say anything about it, it is no more. So please read what I am writing with the consciousness - that no word can contain it, including my words."

Such sincerity, such purity, such truthfulness is very rare, and has become more and more rare.

Other Zen masters expressed the essence of Zen like this:

MASSO SAID, "LICHEN-CRUSTED FROGS CROAK AT MOONLIT MOUNTAINTOPS.

AWAKEN, MIND'S CLEAR AT LAST.

REFRESHING PINE WINDS

OF THE BOOK OF SONGS

CAN'T MATCH THIS."

The BOOK OF SONGS is an ancient Chinese treatise, one of the most beautiful books. It can be compared only to the Old Testament's SONG OF SOLOMON. But even the BOOK OF SONGS can't match this.

This is the only poetry, the only song, the only dance, the only answer, here, now, in your very breathing, in your very heartbeat.

BEIREI SAID,

"ALL PATRIARCHS ARE ABOVE OUR UNDERSTANDING,

AND THEY DON'T LAST FOREVER.

OH MY DISCIPLES, EXAMINE, EXAMINE.

WHAT? WHY THIS. THIS ONLY."

And if you can understand this, nothing else is needed - you have come home. You have been long going astray, you have wandered through lives in many forms on many paths; this brings you suddenly back to your essential self. And your essential self is the universal self. There is no distinction between the individual and the universal. Once the dewdrop falls into the ocean, all distinctions disappear, the dewdrop becomes the ocean.

AND DAIBAI SAID:

"I'M ONE WITH THIS, THIS ONLY.

YOU, MY DISCIPLES,

UPHOLD IT FIRMLY -

NOW I CAN BREATHE MY LAST."

Every master worth the name lives only for those who can understand this. There is no other reason for an enlightened man to live - even for a single moment more. He has arrived home, but he can see many of his fellow travelers are still wandering in darkness. It will be very unkind not to give them a call.

All the masters are nothing but calls to those who are wandering unnecessarily and suffering unnecessarily. This! and you suddenly open your innermost lotus.

Question 1:

Maneesha has asked,

Maneesha, a hundred years after or a million years after, you need not be worried, I will be answering through you. But the answer will be simply this, unadorned, just a pure silence, a space without clouds.

But you need not wait for a hundred years, you need not wait for even a single moment. You have to answer this very moment. The question has been asked.

Every moment, the people who are with me - it does not matter whether they are physically here or not - wherever they are, I am asking them again and again, insisting to them to come home, to be here, just be and don't run after shadows.

Is not this silence saying the same? Are not the bamboos standing in deep silence with you as fellow travelers?

Before we enter into our daily meditation I would like some laughter from the bamboos. You can also participate.

Wu, a Chinaman from Hong Kong, moves to America and finds a job in San Francisco.

When he gets his first paycheck, he goes to the bank to send fifty dollars to his family back in Hong Kong. The bank gives him five hundred Hong Kong dollars in exchange.

The next week, when he deposits his fifty dollars, they give him only four hundred and fifty Hong Kong dollars.

"Money fluctuations..." explains the bank clerk, "it goes up and down all the time."

When Wu returns the next week, he puts down his fifty dollars and is told that he will get four hundred Hong Kong dollars in exchange.

"Hmmm!" says Wu. "Flucked again!"

Fiona Feelgood goes to see Doctor Bones for an examination.

"Get undressed," says Bones.

"Please, Doctor," says Fiona, "turn out the lights."

"Come on now, Miss Feelgood," says Bones, "I am a doctor."

"Turn out the lights," snaps Fiona.

So Bones turns out the lights. Two minutes later, Fiona says,

"Doctor, where shall I put my clothes?"

"Over here," says Bones, "on top of mine!"

A cross-eyed cop arrests three cross-eyed drunks.

He turns to the first cross-eyes drunk and says,

"What is your name?"

And the second cross-eyed drunk says,

"Miles MacDuffy."

The cross-eyed cop says,

"I was not talking to you."

And the third cross-eyed drunk says,

"I did not say anything!"

Audrey and Marilyn, two retired schoolteachers from Chicago, save up all their money to go on safari in Africa.

They are having a wonderful time going through the jungle, when suddenly a huge gorilla swings down out of the trees, sweeps Marilyn into his arms, and disappears.

He takes her back to his cave, and for a week makes love to her all day and night.

Finally, Audrey organizes a rescue party, and Marilyn is saved and rushed to the hospital.

She is treated there for a couple of days and then her friend comes for a visit.

"Oh, Marilyn!" the friend sobs, "what a ghastly experience! How do you feel?"

"How should I feel?" sobs Marilyn, "he never writes, he never calls...!"

Now, the first step is gibberish. Say anything, relevant, irrelevant; don't bother, because nobody is listening. Only those who are listening are idiots.

Speak Chinese if you don't know it, speak Japanese if you don't know it, but don't speak the language you know. Just go crazy. Once in a while it is such a tremendous relief to go crazy.

Nivedano, give the first drumbeat. Everybody goes crazy...

(Drumbeat)

(Gibberish)

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Everybody becomes silent, utterly silent.

Just close your eyes, don't move... let your being settle within yourself.

THIS.

THIS.

THIS is the very essence of Zen.

Go as deep into THIS as possible.

Nivedano, beat the drum...

(Drumbeat)

Fall dead... let the body breathe.

You simply watch suchness, thisness, this immensely tremendous moment.

Die deeper, if you want to come to life.

The deeper you go in death, the higher you will come into life.

Don't miss this tremendous opportunity.

Don't wait for a hundred years.

I am here.

Nivedano, give the beat...

(Drumbeat) Come back to life, fresh, radiant.

A few may still be in their graves; a special beat for them, Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

THIS is the truth.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.