Osho on Witnessing

WHEN THE MIND STOPS MOVING IT ENTERS NIRVANA. NIRVANA IS AN EMPTY MIND.

Empty mind can be misinterpreted. I would suggest it is better to call it “no-mind”, because mind is never empty. The moment mind is empty, it is no longer there. Empty mind is a contradictory use of words — a contradiction in terms. There is nothing like an empty mind; mind is always thought processes. It is always a traffic of thoughts, emotions, dreams, imaginations. When the mind is empty, there is no mind. It is better to use the word “no-mind” than to use the word “empty” mind. Empty mind can be misleading. People can start thinking that all that they have to do is to empty the mind.

And you cannot empty the mind even if you go on working for eternity. You have to drop it — wholesale. You cannot go emptying it in installments, because here you will be emptying it, and from all directions, things will go on coming into it. You cannot empty the mind. Either you cling to it or you simply drop it. There is no middle way.

AN UNINHABITED PLACE IS ONE WITHOUT GREED, ANGER OR DELUSION.

WHOEVER KNOWS THAT THE MIND IS A FICTION AND DEVOID OF ANYTHING REAL KNOWS THAT HIS OWN MIND NEITHER EXISTS NOR DOES NOT EXIST. MORTALS KEEP CREATING THE MIND, CLAIMING IT EXISTS. AND ARHATAS KEEP NEGATING THE MIND, CLAIMING IT DOES NOT EXIST. BUT BODHISATTVAS AND BUDDHAS NEITHER CREATE NOR NEGATE THE MIND. THIS IS WHAT IS MEANT BY THE MIND THAT NEITHER EXISTS NOR DOES NOT EXIST. THE MIND THAT NEITHER EXISTS NOR DOES NOT EXIST IS CALLED THE MIDDLE WAY.

He can never forget to condemn the arhatas. It seems to be as if something is constantly hurting him. The situation is again the same: instead of arhatas, he should have said the so-called sages and saints keep negating the mind. But bodhisattvas, arhatas and the Buddhas neither create nor negate the mind. They simply go beyond it; they don’t fight with it, because to fight with the mind is to give it reality, to recognize its power. There is no need to fight. One has just to be a witness. Without any fight, just being a witness, mind disappears. Before the fire of witnessing, there is no possibility of mind remaining within you even for a single second. Create the fire of witnessing, create the flame of awareness. This is done by the arhatas, bodhisattvas and the Buddhas without any distinction.

WHEN YOUR MIND DOES NOT STIR INSIDE, THE WORLD DOES NOT ARISE OUTSIDE.

This is a beautiful statement, immensely pregnant. It is saying the world outside is nothing but your projection. When your mind stirs inside, the world is created outside.

Once it happened that a German poet, Heinrich Heine, got lost in the forest. He had gone hunting, but lost his way and lost his companion. And for three days he did not come across any human being. He was utterly tired, hungry and continuously worried about the wild animals. In the night he used to climb a tree to somehow protect himself from the wild animals. The third night was a full-moon night and he was sitting up in a tree. Three days of hunger and tiredness; he had not slept. And he saw the beautiful moon. He had written so many beautiful poems about the moon, but this day was different because his mind was in a different situation. Instead of seeing the moon, he saw a loaf of bread moving in the sky. In his diary he wrote, “I could not believe my eyes. I have always seen my beloved’s face in the moon. I have never even thought that a loaf of bread …!”

But a man who has been hungry for three days …his mind is projecting one thing, and that is food. The moon disappeared and a loaf of bread was floating in the sky. What you see is not what is there. What you see is what your mind projects.

I have told you a story about Mulla Nasruddin. He had a beautiful house in the mountains and he hired one of the ugliest women possible to take care of the house. All his friends asked, “Mulla, there must be some reason — why have you chosen the ugliest woman?” Mulla said, “There is a reason. And when the time comes, I will tell you.”

And this created even more temptation to know. And again and again they were asking. It became a continuous temptation for them to enquire about the ugly woman. Mulla used to go to the mountain once in a while to rest, and he would say to his friends, “I am going for three weeks,” and he would be back in one week.

And they would ask, “You went for three weeks …?” He said, “Yes, I went for three weeks, but something happened and I had to come back.”

And this happened again and again. He would go for six weeks and within two weeks he was back. Finally they said, “You are creating a mystery. You are keeping that ugly woman there, you go there for three weeks, you come back in one week. You never keep your word.”

Mulla said, “It is better now that I tell you the truth. The truth is, I have kept that ugly woman for a particular reason. And the reason is that when I go to the mountain house, the woman looks ugly. She is so repulsive, not just ugly. But without another woman, after seven or eight days, she does not look so repulsive. After two weeks, she does not even look ugly. After four weeks, she starts looking even beautiful. That is the time when I leave — now the danger is near. Whenever that woman starts looking beautiful, that is the point to immediately leave the mountains because now there is danger.”

Mind has started creating its own reality. Now it does not care at all what is actually fact; now it is creating its own fiction. Because it has not been with a woman for four weeks, there is a certain hunger, biological hunger, and that hunger is creating a loaf of bread. It is not coincidental that people call beautiful woman “dishes,” “delicious dishes.” Why is a woman, a beautiful woman, in almost all languages, called a “beautiful dish”? Perhaps because, just as food is a hunger and biological, so is sex a hunger and biological. Both are different hungers, but both are hungers.

The world that you see all around you is mostly a projection of your mind. When the mind disappears completely, you will see a totally different world. With all projections gone, then only the real – the objectively real – remains. And with the objectively real, there is no attachment. The attachment arises only with your projecting mind.

Source:

Listen to complete discourse at mentioned below link.

Discourse Series: Bodhidharma: The Greatest Zen Master Chapter #10

Chapter title: Not to be in the mind is everything

9 July 1987 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

References:

Osho has spoken on ‘witnessing, awareness, no-mind’ in many of His discourses. More on the subject can be referred to in the following books/discourses:

1. The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha
2. The Discipline of Transcendence
3. The Hidden Splendor
4. Isan: No Footprints in the Blue Sky
5. I Celebrate Myself: God Is No Where, Life Is Now Here
6. The Perfect Master
7. Sufis: The People of the Path
8. The Tantra Vision
9. Tao: The Pathless Path
10. Vigyan Bhairav Tantra
11. Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega
12. The Zen Manifesto: Freedom From Oneself
13. Zen: The Path of Paradox