Osho on Peace

BELOVED OSHO,

I SEEM TO HAVE HEARD YOU SAY THAT PEOPLE ARE ATTRACTED TO WAR BECAUSE IT IS EXCITING, WHEREAS PEACE IS BORING. IN MY OWN EXPERIENCE I SEEM TO ENJOY INDULGING MY PERSONAL DRAMAS AND TRAUMAS, AND WHEN I’M NOT INDULGING THEM LIFE IS A BIT FLAT. IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE ATTRACTED TO PEACE? WILL THE NEW HUMANITY FIND PEACE, RATHER THAN WAR, EXCITING?

It has never happened. Man has never found peace exciting. It seems that the way man is, war certainly will remain exciting, because the peace that you know is not the real peace; it is the peace of a cemetery, not the peace of this mandir! No war is going on, everything is silent — do you think it is flat? The new man will know this peace twenty-four hours round the clock, waking or sleeping. And the peace that is not only absence of war but a positive flowering within you, a positive wordless song within you, is totally different…

 There is no thought in the mind, no emotion in the heart. In that nothingness you come to know, for the first time, the taste of peace. I am saying it from my own experience. For thirty-two years I have been in that peace, and I have not found it for a single moment flat. It is always opening new doors, new dimensions, new depths. When for the first time you know your inner peace, you think, “This is the end.” Soon you have to change this idea, because the peace goes on growing. And the day comes when you understand that there is no end, the peace is going to become as vast as the universe itself — and the universe has no limits…

I understand that you are in a very difficult situation. You would love to live in peace, but peace seems to be flat; nothing is happening, you are almost in your grave. To avoid being in such a dead state, you go on doing something or other — falling into a love affair, chasing a man or a woman; and then the whole drama of overpowering each other, of dominating each other, fighting…. That too does not seem to be good — every night a pillow fight. It does not seem good, but excitement is there. Every husband on his way home is thinking of excuses why he is late, figuring out where he has been, what to say, what not to say. And the woman is figuring out… she has phoned all his friends’ houses and she has collected all the information that she knows he will use for his excuses. Yes, there is drama. You tell her, “I have been with one of my friends; we met after such a long time.” And the woman laughs, and she says, “Don’t be stupid, your friend has been here! Now I don’t think your friend is a Jesus Christ who can be in two places simultaneously.” You are caught. Every husband feels guilty, the woman is angry, he is trying to persuade her….At least all these dramas and traumatic experiences keep you from falling into that space you call flat. But at such a cost. The peace is flat, the excitement is a torture; you are caught in a dilemma…

Let me repeat: this is not the peace which I am talking about. That peace comes out of meditation, that peace comes when you come out of your mind and become centered as a witness, just watching the mind without any judgment, without any evaluation, without saying, “This is good, this is bad, this is really groovy.” If you do such things, then you have already jumped in and become identified with the monkey. The moment you say, “This is groovy,” you cannot remain outside; you are on the track again. You have simply to be a witness, like a mirror that gives no judgment — a beautiful woman, a Cleopatra, or Mother Teresa, it makes no difference…

But the most difficult thing in your life — which should really be the easiest — is to sit by the side of the flow of your mind. Your mind is just like a river. Thoughts and thoughts and a crowd of thoughts go on passing. You simply sit by the bank, unconcerned, just a witness, and you are in for a great surprise. Slowly slowly, as you become more and more centered and simply a witness, thoughts start disappearing. They can exist only with your identification. You give energy to your mind. When you pull yourself out, you have stopped giving nourishment to the mind. And once there is no nourishment — thoughts are very fragile things — they start dying out. Soon there is silence, there is peace. And this peace is not the peace of a cemetery. This peace is not dead, it is not flat. It is such a tremendous experience that once you have reached the first rung of the ladder, the ladder goes to infinity. You can go on and on discovering new layers of peace. This is the real excitement, unending excitement.

That’s the meaning of the word “ecstasy”: unending excitement. You cannot exhaust it, you cannot come to a point where you say, “There is no more to discover and I am feeling flat.” It has never happened. On my own authority I say to you, I have been going as fast as possible, deeper and deeper into silence, but there is no bottom, there is no limit. Each moment of silence brings new fragrance. Peace brings new flowers. Nothing is said, but much is heard. Nothing is shown, but much is seen. Nobody guides you, but some magnetic force of peace itself takes you farther and farther away from the mind, from the body, from the neighbors, from the wife, from the husband. And the excitement is continuously deepening.

Unless we can create millions of people around the earth who have experienced this kind of peace, war is inevitable, because people cannot survive flat lives. It is better to go into a war and have a little excitement, although it means death. If a man who has not known inner peace is forced to live peacefully, he will either murder or kill himself. Even that will provide some excitement. Excitement is a great nourishment, but only the right kind of excitement is nourishment. The wrong kind of excitement is poison. And up to now humanity has been dominated by the wrong kind of excitement. You are here with me to learn a very simple thing: to enjoy peace, to enjoy silence, to enjoy something that is within you and you do not have to depend on others for. Such a peaceful man radiates peace for others too. His silence starts touching other hearts too. His silence becomes oceanic and very inviting. That’s what I am doing here.

Last night, a very nice, juicy journalist was with me. And he was constantly asking me, “Why don’t you go out into the world to teach people meditation, silence, or whatsoever you name it?”

It was difficult for him to understand that the well never goes to the thirsty. And remember, if the well goes towards the thirsty, the thirsty will escape! Seeing a well coming towards him, he will do anything but stand there where he was standing. He is thirsty, that is true, but that does not mean that wells have to come towards him. The well has to remain where it is. And what to say of an oceanic peace? The well is a small thing; you can miss it, you may not be able to find it. I am not a well. The whole world knows about this ocean. Few are the friends of the ocean, many are the enemies of the ocean — but on one point they all agree, that the ocean is there.

I told the journalist, “I create friends, I create enemies, but I never create a person who can ignore me. I am not ignored. And there is no difficulty; the friend and the foe are just superficially different. The friend will reach me first, and sooner or later the foe will be following. He has already become connected with me — with his hate, with his hostility. He has already married me!” It is only a question of time. He will be watching what is happening to those who are friends.

It all depends on you. If you become peaceful, silent, loving, you will create everywhere a certain area of loving energy. People will start stopping you in the street and asking you what has happened to you — it is something invisible, but very tangible. I am going to remain here. You are going to spread like waves in the ocean to the whole earth. I am not fighting against the third world war, for the simple reason that there is only one way to fight it, and that is to create a peaceful humanity, a humanity which refuses to fight because now there is no excitement in fighting. Now there is excitement in sitting silently, doing nothing and letting the grass grow by itself. You have found real, authentic excitement. Now who cares to fight?

 I am not directly a pacifist, I am not taking protest marches to Washington or Moscow. But I am creating and generating a force which can envelop the whole earth. And that will be the barrier against nuclear weapons, wars, and all kinds of stupidities. Just recognize your responsibility. Man was never required to be so responsible as he is required to be today, because upon him rests the whole thing — of whether the earth is going to be alive, thriving, flowering, or is going to be a dead planet.

Source:

Listen to complete discourse at mentioned below link.

Discourse Series: From Death to Deathlessness Chapter #4

Chapter title: The Taste of Peace

5 August 1985 am in Rajneeshmandir

References:

Osho has spoken on ‘peace, meditation, silence, witnessing, ecstasy, love, heaven, hell’ in many of His discourses. More on the subject can be referred to in the following books/discourses:

1. Beyond Enlightenment
2. The Golden Future
3. The Hidden Splendor
4. The Rebel
5. The Invitation
6. Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries
7. The Zen Manifesto: Freedom From Oneself
8. The Path of Love
9. The Rebellious Spirit
10. The Book of Wisdom