Osho on Tantra

OH SHIVA, WHAT IS YOUR REALITY? Why this question? You can also ask this question, but it will not carry the same meaning. So try to understand why Devi asks, WHAT IS YOUR REALITY? Devi is in deep love. When you are in deep love, for the first time you encounter the inner reality. Then Shiva is not the form, then Shiva is not the body. When you are in love, the body of the beloved falls away, disappears. The form is no more and the formless is revealed. You are facing an abyss. That is why we are so afraid of love. We can face a body, we can face a face, we can face a form, but we are afraid of facing an abyss. If you love someone, if you really love, his body is bound to disappear. In some moments of climax, of peak, the form will dissolve, and through the beloved you will enter the formless. That is why we are afraid — it is falling into a bottomless abyss. So this question is not just a simple curiosity: OH SHIVA, WHAT IS YOUR REALITY?

Devi must have fallen in love with the form. Things start that way. She must have loved this man as a man, and now when the love has come of age, when the love has flowered, this man has disappeared. He has become formless. Now he is to be found nowhere. OH SHIVA, WHAT IS YOUR REALITY? It is a question asked in a very intense love moment. And when questions are raised, they become different according to the mind in which they are asked. So create the situation, the milieu of the question in your mind. Devi must be at a loss — Shiva has disappeared. When love reaches its peak the lover disappears. Why does this happen? This happens because really, everyone is formless. You are not a body. You move as a body, you live as a body, but you are not a body. When we see someone from the outside, he is a body. Love penetrates within. Then we are not seeing the person from the outside. Love can see a person as the person can see himself from within. Then the form disappears…

Another Zen mystic, Hui-Hai used to say to his disciples, “When you have lost your head meditating, come immediately to me. When you lose your head, come immediately to me. When you begin to feel there is no head, do not be afraid; come immediately to me. This is the right moment. Now something can be taught to you.” With a head, no teaching is possible. The head always comes in between. Devi asks Shiva, OH SHIVA, WHAT IS YOUR REALITY? — who are you? The form has disappeared; hence the question. In love you enter the other as himself. It is not you answering. You become one, and for the first time you know an abyss — a formless presence. That is why for centuries together, centuries and centuries, we were not making any sculptures, any pictures of Shiva. We were only making SHIVALINGA — the symbol.

The Shivalinga is just a formless form. When you love someone, when you enter someone, he becomes just a luminous presence. The Shivalinga is just a luminous presence, just an aura of light.

That is why Devi asks, WHAT IS YOUR REALITY?

WHAT IS THIS WONDER-FILLED UNIVERSE? We know the universe, but we never know it as wonder-filled. Children know, lovers know. Sometimes poets and madmen know. We do not know that the world is wonder-filled. Everything is just repetitive — no wonder, no poetry, just flat prose. It doesn’t create a song in you; it doesn’t create a dance in you; it doesn’t give birth to the poetry inside. The whole universe looks mechanical. Children look at it with wonder-filled eyes. When the eyes are wonder-filled, the universe is wonder-filled. When you are in love, you again become like children. Jesus says, “Only those who are like children will enter my kingdom of God.” Why? Because if the universe is not a wonder, you cannot be religious. The universe can be explained — then your approach is scientific. The universe is either known or unknown, but that which is unknown can be known any day; it is not unknowable. The universe becomes unknowable, a mystery, only when your eyes are wonder-filled.

Devi says, WHAT IS THIS WONDER-FILLED UNIVERSE? Suddenly there is the jump from a personal question to a very impersonal one. She was asking, WHAT IS YOUR REALITY? and then suddenly, WHAT IS THIS WONDER-FILLED UNIVERSE?

When form disappears, your beloved becomes the universe, the formless, the infinite. Suddenly Devi becomes aware that she is not asking a question about Shiva; she is asking a question about the whole universe. Now Shiva has become the whole universe. Now all the stars are moving in him, and the whole firmament and the whole space is surrounded by him. Now he is the great engulfing factor — “the great encompassing.” Karl Jaspers has defined God as “the great encompassing.” When you enter into love, into a deep, intimate world of love, the person disappears, the form disappears, and the lover becomes just a door to the universe…Dissolve the form! When things become formless, dizzy, without boundaries, everything entering another, the whole universe becoming a oneness, then only is it a wonder-filled universe.

WHAT CONSTITUTES SEED? Then Devi goes on. From the universe she goes on to ask, WHAT CONSTITUTES SEED? This formless, wonder-filled universe, from where does it come? From where does it originate? Or does it NOT originate? What is the seed? WHO CENTERS THE UNIVERSAL WHEEL? asks Devi. This wheel goes on moving and moving — this great change, this constant flux. But who centers this wheel? Where is the axis, the center, the unmoving center? She doesn’t stop for any answer. She goes on asking as if she is not asking anyone, as if talking to herself.

WHAT IS THIS LIFE BEYOND FORM PERVADING FORMS? HOW MAY WE ENTER IT FULLY, ABOVE SPACE AND TIME, NAMES AND DESCRIPTION? LET MY DOUBTS BE CLEARED. The emphasis is not on questions but on doubts: LET MY DOUBTS BE CLEARED! This is very significant. If you are asking an intellectual question, you are asking for a definite answer so that your problem is solved. But Devi says, LET MY DOUBTS BE CLEARED. She is not really asking about answers. She is asking for a transformation of her mind, because a doubting mind will remain a doubting mind whatsoever answers are given…So the real problem is not how to answer questions. The real problem is how to change the doubting mind, how to create a mind which is not doubting — or, which is trustful. So Devi says, LET MY DOUBTS BE CLEARED.

Two or three things more…. When you ask a question, you may be asking for many reasons. One may be just this, that you want a confirmation. You already know the answer, you have the answer, you just want it to be confirmed that your answer is right. Then your question is false, pseudo; it is not a question. You may be asking a question not because you are ready to change yourself, but just as a curiosity. The mind goes on questioning. In the mind questions come as leaves come on a tree. That is the very nature of the mind — to question. So it goes on questioning. It matters not what you are questioning, with anything given to the mind it will create a question. It is a machine to grind out, to create questions. So give it anything and it will cut it into pieces and create many questions. One question answered, and the mind will create many questions from the answer. This has been the whole history of philosophy.

Bertrand Russell remembers that when he was a child he thought that one day, when he will be mature enough to understand all philosophy, all questions will be answered. Then later, when he was eighty, he said, “Now I can say that my own questions are there standing, as they were standing when I was a child. No other questions have come up because of these theories of philosophy.” So he said, “When I was young I used to say, philosophy is an inquiry for ultimate answers. Now I cannot say it. It is an inquiry for endless questions.” So one question creates one answer and many questions. The doubting mind is the problem. Devi says, “Do not be concerned with my questions. I have asked so many things: What is your reality? What is this wonder-filled universe? What constitutes seed? Who centers the universal wheel? What is life beyond form? How can we enter it fully above time and space? But do not be concerned with my questions. Let my doubts be cleared. I ask these questions because they are in my mind. I ask them just to show you my mind, but do not pay much attention to them. Really, answers will not fulfill my need. My need is… let my doubts be cleared.” But how can the doubts be cleared? Will any answer do? Is there any answer which will clear your doubts?

Mind IS the doubt. It is not that the mind doubts, mind is the doubt! Unless the mind dissolves, doubts cannot be cleared.

Shiva will answer. His answers are techniques — the oldest, most ancient techniques. But you can call them the latest also because nothing can be added to them. They are complete — one hundred and twelve techniques. They have taken in all the possibilities, all the ways of cleaning the mind, transcending the mind. Not a single method could be added to Shiva’s one hundred and twelve methods. And this book, VIGYANA BHAIRAVA TANTRA, is five thousand years old. Nothing can be added; there is no possibility to add anything. It is exhaustive, complete. It is the most ancient and yet the latest, yet the newest. Old like old hills — the methods seem eternal — and they are new like a dewdrop before the sun, because they are so fresh. These one hundred and twelve methods of meditation constitute the whole science of transforming mind.

We will enter them one by one. We will try to comprehend first intellectually. But use your intellect only as an instrument, not as a master. Use it as an instrument to understand something, but do not go on creating barriers with it. When we will be talking about these techniques, just put aside your past knowledge, your knowing, whatsoever information you have collected. Put them aside — they are just dust gathered on the road.

Encounter these methods with a fresh mind — with alertness, of course, but not with argumentation. And do not create the fallacy that an argumentative mind is an alert mind. It is not, because the moment you move into arguments you have lost the awareness, you have lost the alertness. Then you are not here. These methods do not belong to any religion. Remember, they are not Hindu, just as the theory of relativity is not Jewish because Einstein conceived it. And radio and television are not Christian. No one says, “Why are you using electricity? This is Christian, because a Christian mind conceived it.” Science does not belong to races and religions — and tantra is a science. So remember, this is not Hindu at all. These techniques were conceived by Hindus, but these techniques are not Hindu. That is why these techniques will not mention any religious ritual. No temple is needed. You are quite enough of a temple yourself. You are the lab; the whole experiment is to go on within you. No belief is needed. This is not religion, this is science. No belief is needed. It is not required to believe in the Koran or the Vedas or in Buddha or in Mahavira. No, no belief is needed. Only a daringness to experiment is enough, courage to experiment is enough; that is the beauty. A Mohammedan can practice and he will reach to the deeper meanings of the Koran. A Hindu can practice and he will for the first time know what the Vedas are. And a Jain can practice and a Buddhist can practice; they need not leave their religion. Tantra will fulfill them, wherever they are. Tantra will be helpful, whatsoever their chosen path.

So remember this, tantra is pure science. You may be a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Parsee or whatsoever — tantra doesn’t touch your religion at all. Tantra says that religion is a social affair. So belong to any religion; it is irrelevant. But you can transform yourself, and that transformation needs a scientific methodology…

You are ignorant, you are in conflict, you are asleep. This is a disease, a spiritual disease. This disease has to be treated by the tantra. You are irrelevant, your beliefs are irrelevant. It is just a coincidence that you are born somewhere and someone else is born somewhere else. This is just a coincidence. Your religion is a coincidence, so do not cling to it. Use some scientific methods to transform yourself.

Tantra is not very well known. And even if it is known, it is very much misunderstood. There are reasons for it. The higher and purer a science, the less is the possibility that the masses will know of it. We have only heard the name of the theory of relativity. It used to be said that only twelve persons understood it when Einstein was alive. All over the world only one dozen minds could understand it. It was difficult even for Albert Einstein to make it understood to someone, to make it understandable, because it moves so high, it goes above your head. But it can be understood. A technical, mathematical knowledge is needed; a training is needed, and then it can be understood. But tantra is more difficult because no training will help. Only transformation can help. That is why tantra could never become understood by the masses. And it always happens that when you cannot understand a thing, at least you will misunderstand, because then you can feel, “Okay, I understand.” You cannot simply remain in the vacuum.

Secondly, when you cannot understand a thing, you begin to abuse it because it insults you. You cannot understand it! You? YOU cannot understand it? That is impossible. Something must be wrong with the thing itself. One begins to abuse, one begins to talk nonsense, and then he feels, “Now it is okay.” So tantra was not understood; tantra was misunderstood. It was so deep and so high that this was natural. Secondly, because tantra moves beyond duality, the very standpoint is amoral. Please understand this word: ‘moral’, ‘immoral’, ‘amoral’. We understand morality, we understand immorality, but it becomes difficult if something is amoral — beyond both. Tantra is amoral. Look at it in this way…. A medicine is amoral; it is neither moral nor immoral. If you give it to a thief it will help; if you give it to a saint it will help. It will make no differentiation between a thief and a saint. The medicine cannot say, “This is a thief so I am going to kill him, and this is a saint so I am going to help him.” A medicine is a scientific thing. Your being a thief or being a saint is irrelevant…

Tantra is amoral. It doesn’t ask you who you are. Your being a man is enough. Wherever you are, whatsoever you are, you are accepted.

Choose a technique which fits you, put your total energy into it, and you will not be the same again. Real, authentic techniques always will be like that. If I make preconditions, it shows I have a pseudo technique — I say, “First do this and first do not do that, and then…” And those are impossible conditions because a thief can change his objects, but be cannot become a non-thief. A greedy man can change the objects of his greed, but he cannot become non-greedy. You can force him or he can force upon himself non-greed, but it is also only because of a certain greed. If heaven is promised he may even try to be non-greedy. But this is greed par excellence. Heaven, MOKSHA — liberation; SATCHITANANDA — existence, consciousness, bliss, they will be the objects of his greed.

Tantra says, you cannot change man unless you give him authentic techniques with which to change. Just by preaching nothing is changed.

And you can see this all over the world. Whatsoever tantra says is written all over the world — so much preaching, so much moralizing, so many priests, preachers. The whole world is filled with them, yet everything is so ugly and so immoral…

Preachers go on preaching. They go on telling people, “Don’t be angry,” without giving any technique. And we have heard this teaching for so long that we never even raise the question: “What are you saying? I am angry and you simply say, `Don’t be angry.’ How is this possible? When I am angry it means `I’ am anger, and you just tell me, `Don’t be angry.’ So I can only suppress myself.” But that will create more anger. That will create guilt — because if I try to change and cannot change myself, that creates inferiority. It gives me a feeling of guilt, that I am incapable, I cannot win over my anger. No one can win! You need certain weapons, you need certain techniques, because your anger is just an indication of a disturbed mind. Change the disturbed mind and the indication will change.

Anger is just showing what is within. Change the within and the without will change.

So tantra is not concerned with your so-called morality. Really, to emphasize morality is mean, degrading; it is inhuman. If someone comes to me and I say, “Leave anger first, leave sex first, leave this and that,” then I am inhuman. What I am saying is impossible. And that impossibility will make that man feel inwardly mean. He will begin to feel inferior; he will be degraded inside in his own eyes. If he tries the impossible, he is going to be a failure. And when he is a failure he will be convinced that he is a sinner. The preachers have convinced the whole world that “You are sinners.” This is good for them, because unless you are convinced, their profession cannot continue. You must be sinners: only then can churches, temples and mosques continue to prosper. Your being in sin is their success. Your guilt is the base of all the highest churches. The more guilty you are, the more churches will go on rising higher and higher. They are built on your guilt, on your sin, on your inferiority complex. Thus, they have created an inferior humanity.

Tantra is not concerned with your so-called morality, your social formalities, etc. That doesn’t mean that tantra says to be immoral — no! Tantra is so much unconcerned with your morality that tantra cannot say to be immoral. Tantra gives you scientific techniques for changing the mind, and once the mind is different your character will be different. Once the basis of your structure changes, your whole edifice will be different. Because of this amoral attitude, tantra could not be tolerated by your so-called saints, they all went against it — because if tantra succeeds, then all this nonsense which goes on in the name of religion will have to stop. See this: Christianity fought very much against scientific progress. Why? Only because if scientific progress is there in the material world, then the time is not very far off when in the psychological and in the spiritual world also science will penetrate. So Christianity started fighting scientific progress, because once you know that you can change matter through technique, the time is not very far off when you will come to know that you can change mind through techniques — because mind is nothing but subtle matter.

This is tantra’s proposition, that mind is nothing but subtle matter; it can be changed. And once you have a different mind you have a different world, because you look through the mind. The world you are seeing, you are seeing because of a particular mind. Change the mind, and when you look there is a different world. And if there is no mind… that is the ultimate for tantra, to bring about a state where there is no mind. Then look at the world without a mediator. When the mediator is not, you are encountering the real, because now no one is between you and the real. Then nothing can be distorted. So tantra says that when there is no mind, that is the state of a Bhairava — a no-mind state. For the first time you look at the world, at that which is. If you have a mind, you go on CREATING a world; you go on imposing, projecting. So first change the mind, then change from mind to no-mind. And these one hundred and twelve methods can help each and everyone. Any particular method may not be of use to you. That is why Shiva goes on relating many methods. Choose any one method which suits you.

It is not difficult to know which suits you…

So these one hundred and twelve methods can be a miraculous experience for you, or they may just be a listening — it depends on you. I will go on describing each method from as many angles as possible. If you feel any affinity with it, play with it for three days. If you feel that it fits, that something clicks in you, continue it for three months. Life is a miracle. If you have not known its mystery, that only shows that you do not know the technique for how to approach it.

Shiva proposes one hundred and twelve methods. These are all the methods possible. If nothing clicks and nothing gives you the feeling that this is for you, then there is no method left for you — remember this. Then forget spirituality and be happy. Then it is not for you.

But these one hundred and twelve methods are for the whole humanity — for all the ages that have passed and for all the ages that have yet to come. In no time has there ever been a single man, and there will never be one, who can say, “These one hundred and twelve methods are all useless for me.” Impossible! This is impossible! Every type of mind has been taken into account. Every possible type of mind has been given a technique in tantra. There are many techniques for which no man exists yet; they are for the future. There are many techniques for which no man exists now; they are for the past. But do not be afraid. There are many methods which are for you.

Source:

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

Discourse Series: Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1

Chapter #1

Chapter title: The World of Tantra

1 October 1972 pm in Woodlands, Bombay

References:

Osho has spoken on ‘Tantra, Yoga, Zen, Sufism, Hassidism, Tao, Bauls, Buddhism, upanishads and many more’ in many of His discourses. More on the subject can be referred to in the following books/discourses:

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra Vol 2
The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha
Tao: The Three Treasures
The Mustard Seed: My Most Loved Gospel on Jesus
Come Follow To You
Bodhidharma: The Greatest Zen Master
When the Shoe Fits
Hyakujo: The Everest of Zen, with Basho’s Haikus
Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega
The Book of Wisdom
The Divine Melody
Sufis: The People of the Path
Zen: The Path of Paradox
The True Sage
That Art Thou