Osho on Greek Mystic Plotinus Born in Roman Egypt in 205 CE, Plotinus was a Greek philosopher and an inadvertent spiritual guide in the Hellenistic period. He studied philosophy for eleven years under the tutelage of the Platonic philosopher Ammonius Saccas in Alexandria, starting at the age of 27. Plotinus is seen as the founder of Neoplatonism in the modern study of history and philosophy. In his work, Plotinus describes three fundamental principles - the One, the Intellect, and the Soul. He viewed philosophy as a way of life and a form of religion rather than an abstract branch of study.&nbsp; Not a lot is known about Plotinus’ distinctive life as the only reliable source is the preface written by his disciple Porphyry in The Enneads - a collection of Plotinus’s work through the years. Nevertheless, Plotinus had a vast influence during the Late Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance period, and his work inspired the early format of Christian theology, along with guiding centuries of Pagan, Gnostic, Jewish, and Islamic mystics.&nbsp; Osho talks about Plotinus’s words, “Plotinus says: The search for god is a flight of the alone to the alone. It is a flight, and it is the greatest flight there is, because you are not simply changing one place for another, you are changing one space for another. You are not covering a physical distance, you are changing the very dimension of your existence. To feel yourself as the body is one space, one dimension; and to start feeling as the spirit is another dimension, another space. And the gap between the two is infinite -- logically it is unbridgeable. But it is good that logic is not all: there are ways to bridge it. Sannyas is the way to bridge the unbridgeable. From matter to consciousness, from earth to heaven, from the outer to the inner, the gap is really big. And if one wants to bridge it gradually, it is impossible; one can only have a quantum leap. That is the message, the symbolic message, in your name: become a blissful eagle so that you can go to the farthest corners of the sky.”<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="width:100%;height:1px;background:#00000036;margin:10px 0;"></div></div>AUM. MAY THE DIFFERENT LIMBS OF MY BODY -- MY VOICE, MY NOSE, MY EYES, MY EARS, AND MY STRENGTH, AND ALSO ALL THE OTHER SENSE ORGANS BE NOURISHED, AND BECOME INTELLIGENT. ALL THE UPANISHADS ARE MANIFESTATIONS OF BRAHMAN ITSELF. MAY I NEVER DENY BRAHMAN; MAY BRAHMAN NEVER DENY ME. MAY THE DHARMA DESCRIBED IN THE UPANISHAD BELONG TO ME, I WHO AM DEVOTED TO BRAHMAN. AUM, PEACE, PEACE, PEACE. The KAIVALYA UPANISHAD enquiry into the ultimate freedom is an effort to know the secret of total loneliness without feeling lonely. Man can be lonely because others are not present. In that case, even in loneliness, the absent crowd is present. But one can be alone, so totally fulfilled, so totally oneself, that the other is not felt -- not even as an absence. The other is not. When the other has dissolved totally, absolutely, you become free. By freedom, the UPANISHADS means not a political thing, not a social thing, not even a psychological thing; by total freedom, they mean a spiritual, basic, ultimate freedom. One becomes so fulfilled that the whole universe is felt not as another, but as oneself. Really, one has to go deep into it. We feel the other because we are unfulfilled: We feel the other as THE OTHER because we are unfulfilled. Once we are fulfilled, the other is dissolved. In a fulfilled mind there is no feeling of the other. Totally fulfilled, the universe and you become one. This is the search: how to be one with the total universe. And if it is possible to be one with the total universe, then one is lonely without the feeling of loneliness. This phenomenon is known as KAIVALYA: loneliness without feeling lonely. This UPANISHAD is concerned with this ultimate aloneness, what Plotinus has called, "a flight of the alone to the alone." This is the flight; this is what Plotinus means. This is the flight, but this flight begins with a prayer. Nothing religious can begin without a prayer. Really, whatsoever begins with a prayer is religious, because a prayerful mind means many things -- much is implied in a prayerful mood. One: man is not enough; alone he is not enough. Alone he is helpless, alone he cannot go on this flight, a divine support is needed. The support of the total is needed, the support of the whole.&nbsp; Unless the whole supports man, man cannot proceed, because we are not something separate from the whole. We belong to it as an organic part, not as a mechanical part. A mechanical part can be pulled out from the whole, but not an organic part. My eyes are part of me, organically one with me. If my eyes are pulled out, they will not be eyes then, because they can only be eyes when I am seeing through them. My eyes, out of me, will be just dead. Even to call them eyes will be wrong, because they cannot be called eyes if they are not seeing. My eyes see only when they are one with me. This is organic unity: parts are not parts, they cannot be parted, so they are not parts. In an organic unity the part behaves as a whole. In a mechanical unity, the part behaves as a part. If you pull my eyes out, the eyes will not be eyes -- not only that, I will not be a seer, because how can I be a seer without the eyes? Eyes pulled out will be dead eyes; without eyes I will be a dead seer. Eyes and me exist in an organic unity. The eyes are not my part, they ARE me. I am not something apart from my eyes, I AM my eyes. This is what I mean by organic unity. Man exists in his wholeness as an organic unity; that's why prayer is meaningful. Prayer only means alone, helpless, I am nothing. I cannot even move, I cannot even be, so help me. The total is invoked through prayer. The whole is invoked, the whole unity is called forth: Help me; only then I can proceed, only then this enquiry will be possible. Prayer means this: a call for help from the whole. Prayer also implies that unless the whole desires it, it is futile, unless the whole helps it, it is not even desirable. So first, the whole must be with me. Unless the whole is with me, my efforts are futile, and not only futile, they may be even dangerous. They may be even against myself. Man is ignorant. He can go on a search which is meaningless; he can ask for things which are not really for his benefit; he can ask for things which will prove poisonous to himself; he can desire his own death; he can desire his own destruction. The whole must be asked first. The whole must be taken into confidence, so to speak. The whole must be with me; only with the whole with me, can I go anywhere. And the going will never be harmful to me or to anyone else. This is one thing to be understood. There is a proof for it also. Science begins without prayer -- man endeavoring by himself, without any participation, without any call, without any prayerful mood for the whole -- man, endeavoring by himself, without any participation, without any call, without any prayerful mood for the whole -- man, struggling alone. That's why science becomes a conquering, a struggle, a fight, a war. And that's why, as I see it, science has led humanity into a cul-de-sac. Science has promised many things, but not a single promise has been fulfilled. On the contrary, everything that was felt, propagated as a blessing to humanity, has proved quite the contrary. Why? Why so much effort, so much concentration, so much energy wasted by scientists? And humanity is going on every day, deeper into its hell -- why? Any endeavor begun in a non-prayerful mood is going to be dangerous, because the whole has not been asked. The whole has not been taken into confidence. The whole has not even been considered. Prayer means, the whole is significant; I am nothing, I must ask permission, and I must ask for help. If my prayer is answered, only then is any step to be taken. And with a prayerful start man never goes astray; the very prayer changes the whole consciousness. The very mood creates a surrender, creates a surrendering mind, a surrendering consciousness. The very prayer creates in you, not a fight with the universe, but a love. In another way, two things are very significant in human consciousness. The Freudian psychology says man has two types of wills, or man's will is divided into two conflicting centers. One, Freud has called EROS -- love. Another, Freud has called THANATOS -- death. If you mind is functioning from the center of death, thanatos, then a fight is created. If your mind is functioning from the center of eros, then a love towards the universe. I would like to say, that to begin with prayer is to begin with the center of eros. To begin with prayer is to begin the effort as a love effort. It is advancing towards existence in a love-ful mood. It is through love that one prays. If you are going to fight, then prayer is not needed. Science is fighting with the universe; religion is a love effort, it is falling in love with the universe. So this UPANISHAD begins with a prayer, and the prayer is very strange, because the UPANISHAD says, ask that the senses -- eyes, ears, nose... the senses should be strengthened first. "Let my senses be strengthened." This is the first prayer -- very strange, very un-Indian looking! Very unreligious because a religious man is against the senses. He can pray that "I should be away, beyond, transcendent to my senses; how can I dissolve my senses completely?" That seems logical, rational, consistent, but THIS prayer is very strange. "Give strength, more energy, more growth, more maturity to my senses" -- Why? Really, any authentic religious mind lives in a non-duality, not in a duality. For really authentic religion there is no duality between consciousness and body, no duality between the divine and the world, no duality between mind and matter; the duality is just a mental construct. Duality exists nowhere, the whole is one. If we take it as two, or if it appears to us as two, it is because of our way of looking, not because it is so. Through senses it appears to us as matter, and through a non-sensuous approach it appears as mind, as consciousness. But it is one! Matter is just a very deeply asleep consciousness; consciousness is just awakened matter. Matter becomes conscious. So a stone by your side is just in a deep sleep, a very deep sleep of a mind. It may take millennia for it to be awake, but it is. Even in a stone, deep down a soul is asleep, a possible consciousness is there, a potential consciousness is there. And even in you, it has come only to an awakening -- it is there. Matter and mind are two states of one thing, of one phenomenon: asleep it is matter, awakened it is mind. So for the UPANISHADS there is no duality between body and consciousness. So he asks, prays that, "my senses should be strengthened to become more mature, more strong, more sensitive more penetrating. Why? -- because if my eyes can become more penetrating, I can see the divine even in matter, in a tree, even in a stone I can see it. If I am not seeing it, there are two reasons. One, the stone is asleep; second, my eyes are not so penetrating that they can reach even into its sleep and know it. These are the two reasons. Matter is consciousness asleep, and I cannot feel it because my eyes are not so penetrating. My senses are not even so alive that I can feel the consciousness asleep in the stone. So there are two possibilities: either the stone must become, must flower into consciousness, then I can know -- or my eyes must come to their perfection, then I can penetrate. And then even if the consciousness is asleep, I can know and feel. The UPANISHAD prays, "Let my senses be strengthened, so I can penetrate your mystery." Your mystery is here but I cannot see it, my eyes are weak or just blind. My eyes are blind, they don't see you, they don't feel you. Wherever I see, wherever I feel, only matter comes to my knowledge. My feeble senses are not capable of feeling you. Make my senses more alive, more strong, more acute, so I can go deep in your mystery, which is all around. This is a strange prayer and a very beautiful one. Strange, because we have been fed a very wrong conception that the senses are your enemy. So kill the senses, destroy them. With a deadened sensuality, with a dead body, you will be more spiritual. This has been given to us, fed into our minds, this totally wrong conception. It is a very pathological conception towards life -- ill, diseased, neurotic. The UPANISHADS are very healthy, life-affirmative. They say one is not to be dead in the body; rather, more alive. If you are more alive, more and more alive, then you will not feel the body at all. A moment comes when the body is totally filled with aliveness -- every particle of the body alive, awakened -- then there is no body at all. You become just energy, just consciousness. Source: Listen to complete discourse at mentioned below link. Discourse Series: <a href="/that-art-thou-18">That Art Thou, Chapter #18</a> Chapter title: Kaivalya Upanishad 25 March 1972 pm at Mt Abu Meditation Camp, India References: Osho has spoken on many Western Mystics like Jesus, Gurdjieff, Magdalen, Rumi, Socrates, Theresa, Zarathustra, St. Francis, Dionysius, Boehme, Eckhart, Baal Shem and many more in His discourses. Some of these can be referred to in the following books/discourses: 1. Sermons in Stones 2. Come Come Yet Again Come 3. Come Follow To You 4. Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries 5. The New Dawn 6. The Sword and The Lotus 7. Beyond Psychology 8. The Empty Boat 9. I Celebrate Myself: God Is No Where, Life Is Now Here 10. Zarathustra: A God That Can Dance 11. The Perfect Master 12. Sufis: The People of the Path 13. The Diamond Sutra &nbsp;