Osho on Aloneness and Watchfulness

BELOVED MASTER,

PLEASE SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE DISCIPLE’S ALONENESS AND COURAGE.

Anand Taral, the first thing to realize is that whether you want or not, you are alone. Aloneness is your very nature. You can try to forget it, you can try not to be alone by making friends, having lovers, mixing in the crowd… But whatever you do remains just on the surface. Deep inside, your aloneness is unreachable, untouchable.

A strange accident happens to every human being: as he is born the very situation of his birth begins in a family. And there is no other way, because the human child is the weakest child in the whole of existence. Other animals are born complete. A dog is going to remain a dog his whole life, he is not going to evolve, grow. Yes, he will become aged, old, but he will not become more intelligent, he will not become more aware, he will not become enlightened. In that sense all the animals remain exactly at the point of their birth; nothing essential changes in them. Their death and their birth are horizontal — in one line. Only man has the possibility of going vertical, upwards, not just horizontal. Most of humanity behaves like other animals: life is just growing old — not growing up. Growing up and growing old are totally different experiences.

Man is born in a family amongst human beings. From the very first moment he is not alone; hence, he gets a certain psychology of always remaining with people. In aloneness he starts feeling scared… unknown fears. He is not exactly aware of what he is afraid of, but as he moves out of the crowd something inside him becomes uneasy. To be with others he feels cozy, at ease, comfortable. It is because of this reason he never comes to know the beauty of aloneness; the fear prevents him. Because he was born in a group he remains part of a group, and as he grows in age he starts making new groups, new associations, new friends. Already, existing collectivities don’t satisfy him: the nation, the religion, the political party… He creates his own new associations: Rotary Club, Lions Club. But all these strategies are just to avoid one thing: never to be alone.

The whole life experience is of being together with people. Aloneness seems almost like a death. In a way it is a death; it is the death of the personality that you have created in the crowd. That is a gift of others to you. The moment you move out of the crowd you also move out of your personality. In the crowd you know exactly who you are: you know your name, you know your degrees, you know your profession; you know everything that is needed for your passport, your identity card. But the moment you move out of the crowd, what is your identity, who are you? Suddenly you become aware that you are not your name — your name was given to you. You are not your race — what relationship has race with your consciousness? Your heart is not Hindu or Mohammedan; your being is not confined to any political boundaries of a nation; your consciousness is not part of any organization or church. Who are you? Suddenly your personality starts dispersing. This is the fear: the death of the personality. Now you will have to discover freshly, you will have to ask for the first time who you are. You will have to start meditating on the fact: Who am I? — and there is a fear that you may not be at all. Perhaps you were nothing but a combination of all the opinions of the crowd, that you were nothing but your personality. Nobody wants to be nothing. Nobody wants to be nobody. And in fact everybody is a nobody…

So the first problem for a disciple is to understand exactly the nature of aloneness. It means nobodiness; it means dropping your personality which is a gift to you by the crowd. As you move off out of the crowd you cannot take that gift with you in your aloneness. In your aloneness you will have to discover again afresh, and nobody can give you the guarantee whether you will find anybody inside or not. Those who have reached to aloneness have found nobody there. I really mean no body. No name, no form, but a pure presence, a pure life, nameless, formless. This is exactly the true resurrection, and it certainly needs courage. Only very courageous people have been able to accept with joy their nobodiness, their nothingness. Their nothingness is their pure being; it is a death and a resurrection both…You are asking about aloneness and courage. Courage comes out of love… Do you love yourself? Do you love this existence? Do you love this beautiful life which is a gift? It has been given to you without your being even ready for it, without your deserving it, without your being worthy of it.

If you love this existence which has given life to you, which goes on providing every moment life and nourishment to you, you will find courage. And this courage will help you to stand alone like a cedar of Lebanon, high — reaching to the stars but alone. In aloneness you will disappear as an ego and personality and you will find yourself as life itself, deathless and eternal. Unless you are capable of being alone your search for truth will remain a failure. Your aloneness is your truth. Your aloneness is your divineness. The function of the master is to help you to stand alone. Meditation is just a strategy to take away your personality, your thoughts, your mind, your identity with the body, and leave you absolutely alone inside, just a living fire. And once you have found your living fire, you will know all the joys and all the ecstasies that human consciousness is capable of…

In your aloneness you will discover what it is to be. And out of that awareness of your being love flows, and much more. Aloneness should be your only search. And it does not mean that you have to go to the mountains, you can be alone in the marketplace. It is simply a question of being aware, alert, watchful, remembering that you are only your watchfulness. Then you are alone wherever you are. You may be in the crowd, you may be in the mountains; it makes no difference, you are just the same watchfulness. In the crowd you watch the crowd; in the mountains you watch the mountains. With open eyes you watch existence; with closed eyes you watch yourself. You are only one thing: the watcher. And this watcher is the greatest realization. This is your buddha nature; this is your nature of enlightenment, of your awakening. This should be your only discipline. Only this makes you a disciple: this discipline of knowing your aloneness.

Source:

Listen to complete discourse at mentioned below link.

Discourse Series: The Invitation Chapter #23

Chapter title: What kind of vehicle are you using

1 September 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

References:

Osho has spoken on ‘aloneness, watchfulness, awareness, meditation, enlightenment, awakening’ in many of His discourses. More on the subject can be referred to in the following books/discourses:

1. Zarathustra: A God That Can Dance
2. Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2
3. The Secret of Secrets, Vol 2
4. The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty
5. The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 3
6. From Unconciousness to Consciousness
7. The Path of the Mystic
8. The Transmission of the Lamp
9. Sat Chit Anand
10. Zen: The Diamond Thunderbolt
11. Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 4, 9, 10
12. The Ultimate Alchemy, Vol 2
13. The Tantra Vision, Vol 1, 2