Osho on Satsang

Yes, you are right, this is a game of questions and answers. They are simply an excuse so that you can be with me. You are so accustomed to words that without words you cannot find out what you are doing here. You feel a little crazy. But with words, everything feels right.

I would have preferred to sit silently with you, but the trouble is, if I sit silently, then your mind goes yakkety-yak, yakkety-yak. I can even hear the sound — so many wheels moving. So I decided this way it is better. I use words. Listening to my words you stop thinking. And in those moments when there is no thinking, much transpires, much that cannot be said but can only be understood; much which no language is capable of expressing. But the very presence of a man who knows, starts stirring your heart, changing your being.

The West does not know, is unacquainted with many things. For example, it has nothing to compare with what is called in the East satsanga. To a Western mind it will look absolutely absurd. Satsanga simply means sitting with the Master, doing nothing; nobody speaks but nobody thinks either. Any observer is bound to get puzzled.

When, for the first time, P.D. Ouspensky was allowed to be brought to George Gurdjieff — one of Gurdjieff’s inner circle of disciples had been trying for months, saying that he wanted to bring a friend. Finally, he was given permission. On a cold night in Russia — the snow was falling — Ouspensky, with great excitement, thousands of questions and words passing through his mind … he was a world-famous man, one of the most significant mathematicians of his time. And as far as writing is concerned I don’t see anybody comparable to him; he writes magically. His books were already translated into many languages.

And nobody knew Gurdjieff; just a small group of twenty people was all that he had. Ouspensky was thinking that this was the same way that he had been introduced into other societies, clubs, meetings… but there was something totally different. By dim candlelight Gurdjieff was sitting looking at the floor, and twenty people around him were sitting in the same posture looking at the floor. These two also joined in, and Ouspensky – seeing everybody, what they are doing… neither was he introduced nor was anything done. The man who had brought him simply sat in the posture and started looking at the floor.

Ouspensky, thinking that perhaps this was the way, also sat in the same posture and started looking at the floor. But whatever he would do his mind was working: “What am I doing here? And he has brought me to introduce me to George Gurdjieff. This is the fellow, it seems, who is sitting in the middle; but he has not even looked at me. And what are they searching for on the floor? There is nothing – a clean floor. And all the twenty are just sitting!” Minutes passed — and minutes seemed like hours. A silent night, just the flickering light of a small candle, and the sound of the snow falling outside…. And those people went on sitting. Half an hour passed, and his mind was running like mad: “What is happening, and what am I doing here?”

At that moment Gurdjieff looked at him and said, “Don’t be worried. Soon you will be sitting here with these people in the same way, without disturbance. They have learned how to sit with a Master… to sit in such a way that the consciousnesses start merging and melting into each other. Twenty-one people are not sitting here, just twenty-one bodies and one soul, and no thought. But it will take time for you. Forgive me for making you wait for half an hour; it must have seemed to you as if days have passed. “Now take this paper, go to the other room. On one side write what you know. On the other side write what you do not know. And remember that whatever you write down as knowing, we will never discuss; that is finished. You know it and it is none of my business to interfere in it. What you do not know, that will be the only part that I will teach you.”

With trembling hands — for the first time Ouspensky became aware of thinking about what he knows. He has written about God, and he has written about heaven and hell, and he has written about the soul and the transmigration of the soul — but does he KNOW? He went into the other room and sat there with the paper and the pencil. And as he checked in his mind what he knows, what he does not know — for the first time in his whole life he was checking it; otherwise nobody bothers about what one knows, what one does not know. And after a few minutes he came out with the empty paper, and he said, “I do not know anything. You will have to teach me everything.”

Gurdjieff said, “But you have written so many books. I have seen your books and I did not think that a man who knows nothing could be writing so well.” Ouspensky said, “Just forgive me. I am not acquainted with the way you work, but within a few minutes you have made me aware of my utter ignorance. And I want to begin from the very scratch. Forgive me for those books. They were written certainly in sleep, because now I can see I don’t know anything about God. I have read about God but that is not knowing. Just one thing I want to know: what is happening here?”

And Gurdjieff said, “This is a way of creating hollow bamboos. All these people are waiting here to become empty. When they become empty, that is their entrance to the school. This is just outside the school; a school is inside. When they become empty, when I am satisfied that they are empty, they will be taken in. We are not here to teach you anything. We are here to help you to know. We will create situations in which you yourself come to know.”

Satsanga… just to be with the Master…. But for the West it is difficult; hence I speak to you. These questions and answers are really just a game to help you to get rid of words, thoughts. Slowly, slowly you are finding it more and more difficult: what to ask? Just last night Maneesha was worried, “If questions are finished and you start leaving because there is no question, I will shout `Osho, I have found a question! Wait!'”

No, I will not leave. I am waiting for that moment when no question is left within you; then my real work will begin. Right now we are just sitting outside the school. Once you are silent, utterly silent, then there is no need to ask anything; there is nothing to ask, there is nothing to answer.

Silence is the question.
Silence is the answer.
Silence is the ultimate truth.
In silence we meet with existence — words, languages, all create barriers. And to be silent means to be a hollow bamboo. And the miracle is, the moment you are a hollow bamboo, a music descends through you which is not your own. It comes through you; it belongs to the whole. Its beauty is tremendous, its ecstasy immeasurable.

These meetings are just a preparation for that music to descend in you. But you can make a flute only of a hollow bamboo. If you are full of your thoughts and ego and philosophy, religion, theology and politics — all kinds of rubbish — then that music is not for you. And to me, that music is the ultimate experience, the last benediction, the highest flowering of your consciousness.

Source:

Listen to complete discourse at mentioned below link.

Discourse series: The Transmission of the Lamp Chapter #26

Chapter title: Cut the social crap completely

8 June 1986 am in Punta Del Este, Uruguay.

References:

Osho has spoken on ‘silence, satsang, master, existence’ in many of His discourses. More on the subject can be referred to in the following books/discourses:

1. The Book of Wisdom
2. The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha
3. Communism and Zen Fire, Zen Wind
4. Tantra: The Supreme Understanding
5. Ah, This!
6. The Mustard Seed: My Most Loved Gospel on Jesus
7. Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 1
8. Sufis: The People of the Path