WESTERN MYSTICS
The New Alchemy 21
TwentyFirst Discourse from the series of 34 discourses - The New Alchemy by Osho.
You can listen, download or read all of these discourses on oshoworld.com.
The cosmos is a musical harmony, but we are not in tune with it. Tuning is needed. This tuning becomes possible if you surrender yourself to the whole.
Why is man not in tune with the infinite? – because you go on living according to your own mind, not according to the mind of the whole. Lao Tzu calls the mind of the whole “Tao”: the law, the cosmic law.
We create our own laws; every society creates its own laws and those laws are artificial. Those laws are not universal, they are local. And because of those laws, we create an artificial life. We live in society according to the society. Society is a fiction – necessary, but still a fiction. Man has created many societies with many different laws, contradictory laws, but the universal law is one. Unless you become aware that you are living according to artificial devices, you will not be able to attune yourself with the infinite, the natural, the rit. The Vedas have called it the rit, the ultimate law.
The ultimate law is not man-made. Rather, on the contrary, we are made by that law. Our laws are our own fictions, imagination, dreams. There are two possibilities: either you can be social or you can be universal.
You can run your life, build your life around a social fiction: one is a Hindu, one is a Christian – these are social fictions. Jesus is not a Christian, cannot be, and if Jesus comes back, Christians would be the first to murder him again. The Vatican could not tolerate him; it would be impossible for a man like Jesus to be tolerated by any establishment. The pope would be the first to be against him.
I have heard about a Hindu sannyasin who went to meet the pope. The sannyasin said, “I have heard about a man who moves in the lower strata of society with criminals, who stays with prostitutes, who talks against religion and ritual, who is against society, the social laws, the social order, and is a deep anarchist. What will you do with him?”
The pope said, “We will be against him. He is a criminal; he must be punished. But tell me, what is his name?”
The sannyasin said, “His name is Jesus Christ.”
Jesus is not a Christian, nor is Krishna a Hindu, nor Mahavira a Jaina. These are fictions, and Mahavira, Krishna, Buddha and Jesus have moved from the society to the cosmos. Every religious man is rebellious, looks rebellious, because he moves from social fictions to the universal reality.
Remember this: unless you become aware of the social fictions, social games… They are necessary, go on playing them, but don’t be serious about them. Act them, don’t get involved in them, remain aloof and detached. Remember that you cannot have bliss through them. Only through transcending them can the possibility become actual, because only then are you in search of the universal law, of that which is always there, that which is not created by man.
When man was not, the universal law was still there. One day man may not be, because man is not inevitable on earth. Once there were no men: no Hindu, no Mohammedan, no capitalist, no communist, no establishment – nothing. Earth existed more blissfully than it exists now. And one day, man may disappear from this planet. But the law will remain. Find that eternal law and be in tune with it.
How to find it? How to know what the eternal law is that precedes us, that existed before us and will continue after us? We are just waves in that eternal ocean, so how to come to know it?
There are three things to remember and do. One: become a child again. Move back to the point where you were not a social animal, where you were just natural. Children are like animals or trees or rocks. We destroy them, we cultivate them, we cripple them in every way. Those who want to be in tune with the universe must move back. Throw off your civilization, your society, your cultivated habits, and become natural, childlike.
Here, during the meditation camp, try it. Be like a child. Go back, back to your origins. And it’s possible: you can go back. Just by going back you will become different. While meditating here, be like a child and throw off all civilization.
Secondly: remember that you have a very deep-rooted past, the burden of the past on you. Don’t carry it, just put it aside. The past is the problem, and because of this past, your mind moves into the future. The past creates its own future; the past becomes projected into the future. Because of this past, and the projected future, you miss the moment, the real moment: eternal time.
Remember, the past and the future are not part of time, they are part of mind. They don’t exist. The past is no longer, it is just in the memory. The future is not yet, it is just in the imagination. We go on dividing time into three divisions: past, present and future. But past and future are not part of time, the division is false. Only the present is time. The past is memory; the future is imagination. Now is the only time.
So the second thing to remember is that if you want to be in tune with the infinite, remain with the now. Don’t move into the past, don’t move into the future. Live moment to moment. The moment is enough. If you can be here and now, you are in the eternal law because time is the door to eternity. But if you move into the future you have missed the door.
Remain with the moment. Whenever you see that your mind is moving into the future or into the past, come back suddenly, move to the present. Do something, be something, in the present. We go on moving into the future or into the past and go on missing the door that is here, now. It has become a deep-rooted habit.
Thirdly: know well that you cannot be attuned to the infinite through thinking. Only through silence, only through a non-thinking awareness, a non-thinking sensitivity will you be attuned. Thinking is the disturbance, the barrier, because whenever you are thinking you are not in the universe. You are enclosed in your mind.
Whenever you are not thinking you are not enclosed. The walls have disappeared, you have moved into existence. Thinking is non-existential. Non-thinking…
But remember, non-thinking plus awareness. You can move into sleep; that will not do. Non-thinking and alert: no thought in the mind, no clouds in the mind, and alert. In that non-cloudy moment, in that alertness, you penetrate existence. You become one with it. Then the wave is the ocean.
Why is man not in tune with the infinite? – because you go on living according to your own mind, not according to the mind of the whole. Lao Tzu calls the mind of the whole “Tao”: the law, the cosmic law.
We create our own laws; every society creates its own laws and those laws are artificial. Those laws are not universal, they are local. And because of those laws, we create an artificial life. We live in society according to the society. Society is a fiction – necessary, but still a fiction. Man has created many societies with many different laws, contradictory laws, but the universal law is one. Unless you become aware that you are living according to artificial devices, you will not be able to attune yourself with the infinite, the natural, the rit. The Vedas have called it the rit, the ultimate law.
The ultimate law is not man-made. Rather, on the contrary, we are made by that law. Our laws are our own fictions, imagination, dreams. There are two possibilities: either you can be social or you can be universal.
You can run your life, build your life around a social fiction: one is a Hindu, one is a Christian – these are social fictions. Jesus is not a Christian, cannot be, and if Jesus comes back, Christians would be the first to murder him again. The Vatican could not tolerate him; it would be impossible for a man like Jesus to be tolerated by any establishment. The pope would be the first to be against him.
I have heard about a Hindu sannyasin who went to meet the pope. The sannyasin said, “I have heard about a man who moves in the lower strata of society with criminals, who stays with prostitutes, who talks against religion and ritual, who is against society, the social laws, the social order, and is a deep anarchist. What will you do with him?”
The pope said, “We will be against him. He is a criminal; he must be punished. But tell me, what is his name?”
The sannyasin said, “His name is Jesus Christ.”
Jesus is not a Christian, nor is Krishna a Hindu, nor Mahavira a Jaina. These are fictions, and Mahavira, Krishna, Buddha and Jesus have moved from the society to the cosmos. Every religious man is rebellious, looks rebellious, because he moves from social fictions to the universal reality.
Remember this: unless you become aware of the social fictions, social games… They are necessary, go on playing them, but don’t be serious about them. Act them, don’t get involved in them, remain aloof and detached. Remember that you cannot have bliss through them. Only through transcending them can the possibility become actual, because only then are you in search of the universal law, of that which is always there, that which is not created by man.
When man was not, the universal law was still there. One day man may not be, because man is not inevitable on earth. Once there were no men: no Hindu, no Mohammedan, no capitalist, no communist, no establishment – nothing. Earth existed more blissfully than it exists now. And one day, man may disappear from this planet. But the law will remain. Find that eternal law and be in tune with it.
How to find it? How to know what the eternal law is that precedes us, that existed before us and will continue after us? We are just waves in that eternal ocean, so how to come to know it?
There are three things to remember and do. One: become a child again. Move back to the point where you were not a social animal, where you were just natural. Children are like animals or trees or rocks. We destroy them, we cultivate them, we cripple them in every way. Those who want to be in tune with the universe must move back. Throw off your civilization, your society, your cultivated habits, and become natural, childlike.
Here, during the meditation camp, try it. Be like a child. Go back, back to your origins. And it’s possible: you can go back. Just by going back you will become different. While meditating here, be like a child and throw off all civilization.
Secondly: remember that you have a very deep-rooted past, the burden of the past on you. Don’t carry it, just put it aside. The past is the problem, and because of this past, your mind moves into the future. The past creates its own future; the past becomes projected into the future. Because of this past, and the projected future, you miss the moment, the real moment: eternal time.
Remember, the past and the future are not part of time, they are part of mind. They don’t exist. The past is no longer, it is just in the memory. The future is not yet, it is just in the imagination. We go on dividing time into three divisions: past, present and future. But past and future are not part of time, the division is false. Only the present is time. The past is memory; the future is imagination. Now is the only time.
So the second thing to remember is that if you want to be in tune with the infinite, remain with the now. Don’t move into the past, don’t move into the future. Live moment to moment. The moment is enough. If you can be here and now, you are in the eternal law because time is the door to eternity. But if you move into the future you have missed the door.
Remain with the moment. Whenever you see that your mind is moving into the future or into the past, come back suddenly, move to the present. Do something, be something, in the present. We go on moving into the future or into the past and go on missing the door that is here, now. It has become a deep-rooted habit.
Thirdly: know well that you cannot be attuned to the infinite through thinking. Only through silence, only through a non-thinking awareness, a non-thinking sensitivity will you be attuned. Thinking is the disturbance, the barrier, because whenever you are thinking you are not in the universe. You are enclosed in your mind.
Whenever you are not thinking you are not enclosed. The walls have disappeared, you have moved into existence. Thinking is non-existential. Non-thinking…
But remember, non-thinking plus awareness. You can move into sleep; that will not do. Non-thinking and alert: no thought in the mind, no clouds in the mind, and alert. In that non-cloudy moment, in that alertness, you penetrate existence. You become one with it. Then the wave is the ocean.