Walt Whitman was the American poet born on 31^st of May 1819. Along with poet, he was also the essayist and journalist. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse.His work was controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sensuality. Whitman’s own life came under scrutiny for his presumed homosexuality.

Whitman’s work breaks the boundaries of poetic form and is generally prose-like. Whitman wrote in the preface of the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, “The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it.” He believed there was a vital, symbiotic relationship between the poet and society.

Osho has said in one of his discourse that Walt Whitman says I celebrate myself, I sing myself. That is aloneness. This man Whitman is really a mystic, not just a poet. He should be counted with the ancient RISHIS of the Upanishads. America has not given birth to many great mystics; Whitman is really one of the most precious gifts of America to the world. He says: I celebrate myself, I sing myself. That’s what a mystic has always been supposed to do, that’s what a mystic’s function is: to celebrate himself. But how will you celebrate? You will have to invite others. You will have to ask others to come and participate.

Osho also spoke on few lines by Whitman that Please meditate on these words of Walt Whitman:

“I think I could turn and live with animals, they ar so placid and self-contained;
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition.
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins;
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God.”

BELOVED OSHO,

I THOUGHT YOU WOULD LIKE THIS — FROM WALT WHITMAN’S PASSAGE TO INDIA.

SAIL FORTH — STEER FOR DEEP WATERS ONLY,

RECKLESS, O SOUL, EXPLORING I WITH THEE, AND THOU WITH ME,

FOR WE ARE BOUND WHERE MARINER HAS NOT YET

DARED TO GO,

AND WE WILL RISK THE SHIP, OURSELVES AND ALL.

O MY BRAVE SOUL!

O FARTHER, FARTHER SAIL!

O DARING JOY, BUT SAFE! ARE THEY NOT ALL THE SEAS OF GOD?

O FARTHER, FARTHER, FARTHER SAIL!

Prem Turiya, Walt Whitman is perhaps the only man in the whole history of America who comes very close to being a mystic. Otherwise, the American mind is very superficial. It is bound to be very superficial because it is only three hundred years old. It is a child’s mind which is curious about everything: it goes on questioning this and that and even before you have answered it, it has moved to another question. It is not much interested in the answer; it is just curious, it wants to know everything simultaneously. It goes from one religion to another religion, from one master to another master. It goes on searching for answers at the farthest end of the world — but everything remains almost like a fashion. The psychologists have found that in America, everything lasts not more than three years. That is the usual limit for any fashion — a certain toothpaste, a certain soap, a certain shampoo, a certain hair conditioner, a certain guru — they all come into the same marketplace.

Now you don’t hear anything about The Beatles. Just twenty years ago, they were on top; now, nobody even cares who they are. What happened to those poor fellows? Now you hear about the Talking Heads; the same is going to happen to them. During these twenty years, many musicians and many dancers, many singers, have risen to the heights and disappeared. It has been calculated that in America, every person changes his job every three years, changes his wife every three years, changes his town every three years. Three years seems to be long enough: something new is needed. Walt Whitman seems to be a rare individual to have been born in America. He should have been born somewhere in the East — and he was immensely interested in the East. This small piece that Turiya has sent is from his long poem, PASSAGE TO INDIA.

SAIL FORTH — STEER FOR DEEP WATERS ONLY,

RECKLESS, O SOUL, EXPLORING I WITH THEE, AND THOU WITH ME,

FOR WE ARE BOUND WHERE MARINER HAS NOT YET

DARED TO GO,

AND WE WILL RISK THE SHIP, OURSELVES AND ALL.

He is saying that a spiritual seeker needs to be aware that he is going into unknown waters where no mariner has ever dared to go. And the risk is not small because the challenge is “Steer for deep waters only”… leave the shallow waters for shallow minds. Those who want to know their own depths have to steer into deeper waters.

SAIL FORTH — STEER FOR DEEP WATERS ONLY,

RECKLESS O SOUL, EXPLORING I WITH THEE, AND THOU WITH ME,

FOR WE ARE BOUND WHERE MARINER HAS NOT YET DARED TO GO…

Our goal is where no one has ever dared to go. “And we will risk the ship” — if the worst comes to the worst, we are ready to “risk the ship, ourselves and all.” But we are determined to explore the unknowable.

It is a tremendously beautiful passage for every seeker of truth, every searcher for the ultimate mystery of existence: shallow waters won’t do. People want everything without risking anything, and because of this, there are so many exploiters.

They tell you, “Just go to church every Sunday and you need not worry. Believe in Jesus Christ, and on the day of judgment, he will sort out those who believe in him. They will enter into paradise; and those who are not chosen by Jesus will fall into hell for eternity.” A very cheap, very shallow solution: just believe in Jesus Christ. Hindus say the same: “Just believe in Krishna. Just go on repeating, `Hare Krishna, Hare Rama.'”…

Walt Whitman is one of the people who is not understood in America at all — and yet, he is the only one America can be proud of.

O MY BRAVE SOUL!

O FARTHER, FARTHER SAIL!

O DARING JOY, BUT SAFE! ARE THEY NOT ALL THE SEAS OF GOD?

Don’t be worried about safety. Is not this whole existence one? Are you and existence separate? Don’t you belong to the same source, the same God? All these seas are of God, so you are safe. Don’t be worried; you can “Risk the ship, ourselves and all,” — and yet, you are safe in the hands of existence.

O FARTHER, FARTHER, FARTHER SAIL!
Go as far as possible. Don’t leave any place unexplored.

He is not saying these words about the outside world; he is saying these worlds are within you. When he is saying, “farther and farther,” don’t misunderstand him. His meaning in the whole poem — this is only a passage, a part — is to go into the inner and risk everything — “the ship, ourselves and all.” And there is no need to be worried about security, about safety, because all this is part of one whole. To see this whole existence — outside and inside — as one, is an immense insight; only very rarely does a poet rise to such heights. He had something of the mystic in him. Although he was born in America, he had something of the East in him; hence, this PASSAGE TO INDIA. India has been for centuries the symbol of the inner journey. It is not just a political entity — it is a spiritual phenomenon. As far back as we know, people have been coming to India from all over the world in search of themselves. Something is in the very climate, something is in the very vibe, that helps.

I have seen it — going around the world I was watching — and it was a very puzzling experience. And those who are here and who have also been in the commune in America, all feel it. So many letters have come to me: “it is strange… we were in the commune for five years, but we never felt the same joy, the same song, the same dance, that we are feeling here.” And I was also seeing the fact that because there has been no spiritual inheritance, the air is empty, dry. It does not have the juice that nourishes the soul. And then I went around the world and I could see the difference. Perhaps, because for thousands of years the eastern genius has been consistently in search of the soul, it has created a certain atmosphere. If you meditate in the East, it seems as if everything helps: the trees, the earth, the air. If you are meditating in America, you have to meditate alone — there is no help coming from anywhere.

In Spain, in Portugal, there was every possibility to create another commune, but I saw the same thing would happen.

The whole effort of five years in America was simply destroyed by the fanatic Christians — who don’t understand anything of religion — and the fascist politicians.

In fact, they were afraid of the commune. It became their basic concern: the attorney general declared, “To destroy this commune is our priority,” and the commune was not doing any harm to anybody. But I can understand: deep down the commune was vibrating on a different wavelength; it was not part of America, and it could never be part of America. Its vibe was so strong that there was no way to defeat it — because America knows nothing about spirituality; it has never gone deeper than the skin.

And moving around the world my experience was the same. The East has fallen politically, economically, but it still carries a shadow of its golden flights. And those who are in search of themselves will find here, in this poor third-world country, immense nourishment for their souls. Scientifically, technologically, it is not advanced; and poverty is growing every day more and more. But still, in spite of all this, it remains the richest land in the world as far as the spiritual search is concerned.

Source:

This is an excerpt from the transcript of a public discourse by Osho in Buddha Hall, Shree Rajneesh Ashram, Pune. 

Discourse Series: The Rebellious Spirit

Chapter #15

Chapter title: God the father — just another teddy bear

17 February 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

References:

Osho has spoken on eminent poets and writers like Byron, Coleridge, D.H. Lawrence, Ghalib, Heinrich Heine, Walt Whitman, John Ruskin, Kahlil Gibran, Kalidas, Keats, Leo Tolstoy, Mark Twain, Milton, Oscar Wilde, Rabindranath Tagore, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Rumi, Rudyard Kipling, Shakespeare, Shelley, William Blake, Wordsworth and many more in His discourses. Some of these can be referred to in the following books/discourses:

1. The Book of Wisdom
2. The Sword and The Lotus
3. Returning to the Source
4. Light on the Path
5. The Secret
6. The Hidden Splendour
7. The New Dawn
8. Beyond Enlightenment
9. The Golden Future
10. The Messiah, Vol 2