THE UPANISHADS

The Ultimate Alchemy Vol 2 08

Eighth Discourse from the series of 12 discourses - The Ultimate Alchemy Vol 2 by Osho.
You can listen, download or read all of these discourses on oshoworld.com.

Osho,
Last night you explained inner stillness through the dimension of inner silence. Please explain inner stillness from some other dimension.
Stillness has many dimensions. One is silence: that is the polar opposite of sound, soundlessness. The second dimension is no movement: that is the polar opposite of movement. Mind is movement, just as mind is sound. Sound travels, mind also. Mind is in constant movement, never standing still. You cannot conceive a still mind. There exists no such thing, because when stillness is, mind is no more; when mind is, it is movement. So what is the movement of mind? Through it we can conceive the second dimension of stillness, no movement.
Outside we know what movement means: moving from one spot to another, from one place to another, from A to B. If you are at A and then move to B, movement has taken place. So outside the mind, movement means changing places in space. If there is no space, you cannot move. You need space to move outside.
Inside movement is not in space but in time. If there is no time, you cannot move inside. Time is inner space. So from one second you move to another second, from this day to another day, from here to somewhere else, in time, from now to then. Time is inner space. Analyze your mind, and you will always be moving from past to future, from future to past. Either you are moving in the memories, past memories, or you are moving into future desires. Memory or desire, past or future…
When you move from the past to the future or from the future to the past, only then do you use the present moment, just as a passage. For the mind, the present is nothing but the dividing line between past and future. For the mind, the present is not really existential. It is just a dividing line from where you can move to the past or to the future. Mind is never in the present, because in the present you cannot move.
So understand this: in the present you cannot move – then there is no time. The present is always a single moment. You are never given two moments together; only one moment is given to you. You cannot move from A to B, because only A exists; there is no B.
Understand this quality of time in the present: you are given always a single moment. Whether you are a beggar on the street or an emperor, it makes no difference. Your time wealth is the same: one moment at a time. You cannot move in it. There is no place to move, and mind exists only in movement. So mind never uses the present, it cannot use it; it goes back to the past. Then it has many points to move to. A long memory, your whole past is there.
Or it goes to the future. Again you can imagine. The future is also, basically, the projected past. You have lived, you have experienced many things. You desire them again, or you desire to avoid them. That is your future. You loved someone; it was beautiful, blissful. You desire it again, you project it into the future, to repeat it. You were ill, you suffered. You want to avoid it in the future; you project not to be ill again.
So your future is just projected past, and you can move in the future – endlessly. And mind is not satisfied only with the future which belongs to this life: it projects heaven, it projects future lives. It is not satisfied with such a small future. Beyond death also mind creates time.
Past and future, they are vast territories. You can move easily. With the present you cannot move. No movement means to be in the present. That is the second dimension of stillness. If you are in the moment, just here and now, you will be still. You cannot do anything else. Then no other possibility exists but to be still.
Live in the now and movement stops, because mind stops. Don’t think of the past and don’t project the future. That which is given to you is all and all. Stick to it, remain in it, be content with it. This very moment is the only real existential time. Past is just a memory, nowhere else. It is just in your mind – accumulated dust, accumulated experience. There is no past in existence, there is no future in existence. Existence is the present.
If man is not on this earth, there is no past and no future. Flowers will flower, of course, but in the present. And the sun will rise, but in the present. The earth will not know anything of the past, will not dream anything of the future. There will be no past, no future. The past is in the mind, in the memory, and because of that memory it is projected into the future.
Ordinarily we divide time into three parts: past, present, future. But, really, past and future are not parts of time at all. They are parts of mind, not parts of time. Time has only one division, if you can call it division: that is the present. Time is always the present. These three divisions are not divisions of time. Past and future belong to the mind, not to time at all. Only the present belongs to time, but then it is difficult to call it “the present” because to us, linguistically, present means something between past and future. It refers to the past, it refers to the future. If there is no past and no future, then the word present loses all meaning.
Eckhart is reported to have said that there is no time but only eternal now. It is an eternal now and an infinite here. When we say there, it is only in reference to us; otherwise it is only here. If I am not here, then what point will be here and what point will be there? In reference to myself, the nearer place I call here, and that which is not near I call there. Where does the here end and where does the there begin? You cannot demarcate the line. Really, it is all one hereness – infinite here.
Because of the mind we divide time. Then that which we have experienced becomes past, that which we expect to experience becomes future, and that which we are passing through becomes present. But if there is no mind, then it is again an infinite now, eternal now. Here plus now is the reality. There and then are parts of mind, not parts of reality.
To conceive stillness from this second dimension means making an effort to live moment to moment – and you will be still, you will be silent. There will be no trembling inside, no wavering inside, no movement. Everything will have become a pool of deep silence.
Why does this mind move into past and future? Buddha has given it the names tanha, trishna – desire. Buddha says because you have experienced something, you desire it again. Because you desire, you move into the future. Don’t desire and there is no future. It is difficult, because when mind experiences pleasure it wants to repeat it, and when mind feels displeasure it doesn’t want to repeat it. It wants to avoid it. Because of this, a very natural thing, future is created, and because of future we go on missing the present.
You are listening to me. You can either just listen…then you will not have any mind at all. It will be a mindless listening. But if you are listening and trying to understand, then you have moved into the future. If you are thinking about what is being said to you, you have missed what is being said to you; you have moved to the future. And the present is such a subtle, delicate thing, and such a minute, atomic thing that you can miss it in a single movement of the mind. Just a jerk – you have missed it.
If you are listening, then just listen. Don’t think about what is being said, don’t try to find out the meaning, because you cannot do two things in the present. You cannot do two things. Listening is enough. And if you are simply listening, then you are in the present and even listening becomes a meditation.
Mahavira has said that if you can just listen rightly, you need not practice anything else. Just by being a shravaka, a right listener, you will achieve everything that can be achieved – just by being a shravaka, a right listener – because just listening is not just listening; it is a great phenomenon.
And once you know the secret, you can apply it everywhere. Then just eating will be meditation, just walking will be meditation, just sleeping will be meditation. Then anything with which you are in the present, without any movement into the future, will be meditation.
But we don’t know any activity in which we are in the present. Either we begin to think of the past or of the future. The present is continuously missed. That means the existence is continuously missed. And then it becomes a chain process, then it becomes a habit.

One evening, Mulla Nasruddin was walking down a street. The street was lonely and suddenly he became aware of some horsemen, some troops coming towards him. His mind began to work. He thought they may be robbers, they may kill him. Or, they may be soldiers of the king and he may be pressed into military service, or something. He made himself frightened. Then the horses and their sounds came nearer. He bolted, ran away, jumped into a cemetery, and just to hide from them he lay down in an open grave.
Seeing this man suddenly running away, those horsemen became aware. “What has happened?” They were just innocent travelers. So they ran after Mulla Nasruddin, they jumped, they came near his grave. He was lying there with closed eyes, as if dead. So they asked, “What has happened? Why did you suddenly become so frightened? What is the matter?”
Then Mulla Nasruddin realized that he had unnecessarily frightened himself. He opened his eyes and then said, “It is a very complicated thing, very complex. If you insist on asking why I am here, I will tell you. I am here because of you, and you are here because of me. This is a vicious circle.”

If you desire, you have moved into the future, and this will create a vicious circle. Every time when that future becomes a present, you will again move into the future. Today I will think of tomorrow; this will become a habit. And tomorrow never comes. It cannot come; that is impossible. When it comes it is again a today, and I have created a habit of moving always from today to tomorrow. So when tomorrow comes it comes as a today; I again move for the tomorrow.
This is a chain. And the more you do it, the more you become efficient in doing it. And the tomorrow never comes. Always what comes is today, and with today you have no relationship. You have a mechanism: because it is a today, you move. This is a very long habit – not only of this life but of lives together. One has to break it, one has to come out of it.
Whatsoever you are doing, remember only one thing: remain in the present while you are doing it. It is difficult, arduous, and you cannot succeed immediately. A long habit is to be broken. It is going to be a tough struggle, but try. The very effort will create a gap. And the very effort will give you, sometimes, some moments of the present. And once you know the taste, you are on the path.
We don’t know even the taste of the present. We have never tasted it, we have never lived in it – never, I say. And it is always here. It is the very life. It is all that is in life.
Jesus says that we are just dead, not alive.

He is passing by a fisherman. It is just in the morning, the sun is about to rise. The fisherman has thrown his net into the lake. Jesus puts his hand on the fisherman’s shoulder and says, “Are you going to destroy your whole life just catching fish? I can show you something better to catch. I can make you a fisherman of life.”
The fisherman looked at Jesus as if some magnet was working on him. He threw his net and followed, went with Jesus.
When they were just going out of the village, someone came running and told the fisherman, “Your father is dead. He has just died, so come home. Where are you going?”
So the fisherman asked permission. He said to Jesus, “Allow me to go home. Soon I will come back. I have to bury my dead father.”
Jesus said, “Let the dead bury their dead. You need not go – you follow me. There are many dead men in the village. They will bury the dead.”

For Jesus, we are dead men because we have never tasted life, never tasted the present, the existential. We live in the dead past, and we go on projecting the dead past into the future. This is what Shankara calls maya, illusion. Shankara has been very much misunderstood. When Shankara says the whole world is an illusion, he means this, that man’s world is an illusion, not the world.
We don’t know anything about the world. We have created our own mental world. Everyone has his own world – this world of past and future, this world of memories and desires. This world is false, illusory. So when Shankara says the world is false, it means your world, not the world. And when your world is no more, you will come to know the real world. And Shankara says that is brahman, that is the truth, the absolute truth.
It is as if we are living in a dreamworld, everyone surrounded by his own dreams, the mist, the cloudy mist of dreams. Everyone is moving surrounded by his own dreams, and because of these dreams he cannot see what is true, what is real. The real is hidden behind our dreams.
This dreaming mind is the unstill mind. The nondreaming mind is the still mind. But desires create dreams. You dream in the night because you desire in the day. If you don’t desire in the day you cannot dream in the night.
A Buddha cannot dream because dreams are desires and desires are dreams. When they are in the day you call them desires, when they are in the night you call them dreams. But every desire is a dream. Why? Because every desire is in the future, which is not. Every desire is a future desire, which is not. The future is not.
We go on dreaming. This dreaming must be broken. This dreaming is a movement, continuous movement. You are filled with dreams – broken, burnt, newly created. We have to throw out old ones every day and create new ones.
Any moment, in any activity, try to be here and now. Even the effort is a barrier, but one has to begin. In the beginning you will have to make an effort. Even effort is a barrier because effort again moves into the future. But in the beginning one has to make an effort. Then in the second stage one has to make an effortless effort. And then in the third stage effort disappears and you are in the present.
You are walking on the street. Just try to walk, don’t do anything else. It looks simple – it is not. It looks as if we are all doing it – it is not so. When you are walking, your mind is doing a thousand things. Move with every step. Just walk. Buddha has said: When you are walking, just walk. When you are eating, just eat. When you are listening, just listen. Be in the act totally. Don’t allow your mind to move somewhere else.
And this is a wonderful experience, because suddenly the present will break in. Into your world of dreams the world of reality will penetrate. And if even for a single moment you have the glimpse, you will be a different person. Then you will know something which is just here and now, around you, and you are missing it. You are missing it only because of a mechanical habit, and one cannot do anything other than try to be nonmechanical. Sometimes, with awareness, miracles happen.

I was reading that in Russia, in the old days before the revolution, in a small provincial town, a drama was enacted. Suddenly the manager became aware that one person was missing who was essential in the last act. One man was needed in a particular role in which he had to stutter. The man was missing, so they tried to find someone to replace him. Then someone suggested: “It will be difficult to practice just now, but in our village there is one boy who is just perfect. He does not need any training – he stutters.”
So the boy was brought. Many doctors had tried to cure him, many medicines were tried, but the stuttering had continued. The boy was called and given the role. There was no need for him to practice. But when the boy entered on the stage, he tried to stutter and he couldn’t. He began to speak as faultlessly as anyone. The more he tried, the more impossible it was.

What had happened? For the first time a mechanical habit, of stuttering, was broken by awareness. Now he was doing it with full alertness. He was trying to do it, he was conscious. And the disease disappeared. It was a mechanical habit – the very effort to do it consciously made it impossible.

I was in a town. A professor was brought to me. He was a professor in a college, a very learned, sensible, rational man. But he was suffering – suffering much because he had imbibed the habit of walking like a woman. And that was a problem for him, particularly in a college. Everyone would laugh. He was psychoanalyzed, treated, hospitalized, but nothing would result from any effort. And the more he tried, the more he willed himself not to do it, the more puzzling the thing became, and he became confused.
He was brought to me. I told him, “Don’t fight with the habit. Rather, do it consciously. When you walk on the street, walk like a woman – try to walk like a woman.”
He said, “What are you telling me? I am already in so much trouble, and if I myself try to walk that way, then it will be even worse.”
So I told him, “You have tried continuously for twenty years not to walk like a woman. Now try quite the contrary. Stand here. Just walk in this room before me.”
Very shy, still he tried. He couldn’t do it. He said, “What has happened? What are you doing? Have you done something? It is a miracle! I am trying, and I cannot walk like a woman.”
I told him, “Go, and continue doing it. Go to your college. Try in every way to walk like a woman.”
In the evening he came. He was just ecstatic. He said, “How can I thank you? It seems impossible, but a miracle has happened. The trick has worked. I cannot walk like a woman. If I try to, I cannot. What has happened?”

The moment you bring your alertness to any mechanical habit it stops, because a mechanical habit feeds on your unconsciousness. So willpower won’t do. Awareness will do. And remember the difference: in willpower you begin to fight with the habit. And if you try to fight with the habit, you have accepted the habit. No, when I say do it consciously, I am saying don’t fight with it. Give it your full support, don’t be anti it.
You are walking on the street: give your full support to your walking. Be one with it. Be aware of what is going on. Now the left leg, now the right, is moving. Feel every moment consciously. Remain with the moment; don’t allow your mind to move anywhere else. If the mind moves because of old habits, bring it back again. Don’t get frustrated. If the mind moves, then don’t say, “It is impossible, I cannot do it” – no. Bring your mind back again. Try again. And sooner or later you will begin to feel some moments, rare they are, when you will taste the feeling of the present, what it is to feel the present. And once you feel the present, you are just near the door of existence. You can enter it.
Stillness in this dimension means no movement of the mind into past and future. No movement in past and future…just remaining in the present. You can understand it intellectually, you may even feel that it is okay, but intellectual understanding will not help. Rather, it may be a deception; it may prove to be a deception. You will have to do it. Thinking is of no help.
You are lying on your bed, you are just going to sleep. Feel this state of lying on the bed. Feel the touch of the bed, the touch of the bedsheets, the sounds all around, the traffic sounds, or whatsoever is going on there. Feel it. Be there. Don’t think, just feel. Just feel and be in the present, and in that feeling state fall into sleep. You will have fewer dreams that night, you will have a deeper sleep. In the morning, you will have a fresher awakening.
When in the morning you feel for the first time that now sleep has broken, don’t just jump out of the bed. Remain there for five minutes. Feel again the sheets, the warmth, the coldness; or the rain is falling on the roof, or the traffic has begun again, the world is awakening, the noise, the birds singing, feel it again for five minutes. Don’t rush into the day just now. Be in the morning. Otherwise your sleep is broken and you have rushed, you have moved into the future. You have gone to your market or to your office. You have rushed, you have moved.
For five minutes just be there. Don’t move so fast. There is no hurry. These five minutes will become meditative. And these moments in the morning and in the night are the best moments. It is very easy to get the feeling of the present in these moments.
Just falling into sleep is a very vulnerable moment. Be sensitive to everything around. Don’t think – feel. Because feeling is always in the present and thinking is never in the present. And then in the morning, when the mind is fresh after the night’s sleep, and the body is relaxed, and you have new energy to work with, again feel for five minutes, and then come out of your bed. But be alert that you are coming out of the bed. Take every step with full awareness. And in the morning it is very easy. In the afternoon it will not be so easy. In the evening it will become more difficult.
Go to your bath, take a shower – feel. Feel the shower falling on you, feel every drop falling on you. Forget everything else. Remain under this shower and feel the present. The morning bath can become a deep meditation. When water is falling on you, you have a deep communion with nature. Remain there for a few moments, and then try to continue this feeling.
You are taking your breakfast or you are eating your food – try to continue it. It will be more and more difficult, but go on trying. Soon a day will come when you can move throughout the day in the present, remaining in the present. And once this happens, you will know what stillness is.
This is the second dimension. There is a third dimension also, and it will be good to know something about it. First is silence as against sound. That one is soundlessness. Second is stillness as against movement. That is nonmovement, no movement. And third is nonbeing as against ego – egolessness. The third is the deepest.
Buddha has said, “Unless you cease to be, you cannot be still. You are the problem, you are the noise, you are the movement. So unless you cease completely you cannot attain perfect stillness.” Because of this, Buddha is known as anatmawadi – one who believes in no-self.
We go on thinking that we are: “I am.” This I is a very false thing. And because of this I, many diseases are created. Because of this I, you go on accumulating past. Because of this I, you go on thinking of repeating past pleasures. Everything else hangs on this I – the past, the future, the desires.
Buddha came to know through deep meditation that we can leave the desires of the world, but if the I remains then it begins to desire moksha, ultimate liberation, freedom, to be one with existence, to be one with brahman. If this I remains, desires will be there whatsoever their direction and whatsoever their object.
Buddha says, “Drop this I-centered existence.” How to drop it? Who will drop it? If there is no I, who will drop it? Who will think to drop it? By dropping is meant: go inside and find this I, search for it, where it is, whether it is or not – because those who have gone in and those who have searched for it have never found it. It is only those who have never gone in, never searched for it, who believe in it, that it is there. No one has found that anything like I exists inside.
When I say, “I am,” the am is the reality, not the I. When you go in you feel a certain amness, a certain existential feeling is there. You know something is there, but it is not you. There is no feeling of I. A diffused amness, existence, is felt, with no I.
So the third thing, to enter into the third dimension: whenever you have time, whenever You need not go to a temple. If you go it is good, but you need not. You are just traveling in the train: close your eyes and try to find out where this I is. In the body? In the mind? Where is it? Go with an open mind. Just find out where it is. Just sitting in your car, or just lying in your bed, whenever you have a few moments to close your eyes, close them and just ask one question: “Where does this I exist? Where is it? Where am I?”
Ramana Maharshi has given a meditation. He calls it the “Who am I?” meditation. Buddha would say this will not do, because when you ask “Who am I?” you have already supposed that you are. That is not questioned. If the only question is “Who am I?” then “I am” is settled already. You have presupposed it. Now you are just asking, “Who am I?” The I is not questioned. Buddhist meditation says, “Ask where am I?” not who, but where.
Go to every nook and corner inside, search with an open mind, and you will not find yourself anywhere. You will find a silent existence, but with no I. And don’t think that this is very difficult. It is not. Even if you just close your eyes here and try to find out “Where am I?” you will not find it. You will find many other things. Your heart will be beating, your breathing will be there, you will find many thoughts floating in the mind. You may find many things, but you will not find any I, any ego there.
Buddha says ego is a collective noun – just like society, just like nation, just like humanity. You cannot find them anywhere. We are sitting here. We can call it a class, but we cannot find it. If we go to search for it, we will find individuals, not any class. No group will be found, only individuals. Group was just a name for the collectivity – just like we call many trees a forest. There exists no forest, only trees and trees and trees. If you go in, then you will find trees and the forest will disappear.
This I is just a collective name. You are a group. The Buddhist word is sangha, just a compound, a collective thing. You are many things, but not I. Go in and find out. Buddha says, “Don’t believe me – go in and find out. Dig and find out.” It is never found.
So in this third dimension of nonbeingness or egolessness, when one finds that one is not, one is still. Stillness happens. You cannot be tense, you cannot be nonstill, you cannot be in a deep inner noise, if there is no ego. The whole show is withdrawn.
But what are we doing? We are every moment doing things to feed this I – to give it more strength, to give it more energy, to give it more fuel. We are every moment trying to sustain it. It is a false notion, but it can be sustained and maintained. You can go on believing in it and creating situations in which it becomes easier and easier to believe in it. I is a belief. It is not a fact.
Everyone is a believer in the ego. People will ask, “Where is God? Unless we find him we cannot believe in him.” Even those persons will go on believing in their egos without trying to find out whether any such things exist. This is a miracle. We can doubt God, but we cannot doubt ourselves. And unless we doubt ourselves, we cannot move into stillness. With that doubt everything is shattered. A religious man is born by doubting in his ego, doubting himself.
We have taken it for granted; we never ask about it, whether it is there or not. And if someone makes us aware that it is not there, he is our enemy. Friends are those who help us to be stronger egos. Our family, our society, our nation, they all help us to be centered in our egos.
Religion dethrones you. You are brought down from your pedestal. You are not, and if you are not you will be in a deep abyss of stillness – bottomless, infinite – because this I is the disturber, this I is the disease, this I is the nuisance. What is the problem?

Tanka is staying in a village. Someone comes and he asks, “Help me. Teach me, initiate me. I want to be free. I want to attain moksha.”
Tanka says to him, “I cannot make you free. I can dissolve your you, but I cannot make you free. I can dissolve your you.”

There is no freedom for the I. There is only one freedom and that is freedom from the I. There is no moksha for I, no liberation for I. There is only one liberation, that is from the I, not for the I.
So what can you do? You can ponder over it without any preconception. Just whenever you have time, close your eyes, go in, and find out where you are. And soon you will stumble upon the fact that you exist as part of the infinite existence, not as a separate island. No man is an island, we are parts of an infinite continent. I’s give you the false notion of being islands, and then every trouble is created. I is the troublemaker. Every violence, every war, every crime, every madness, is created by this I. And we cling to it, we go on clinging to it. This clinging must be stopped. You must be uprooted from your own I’s.
No one else can do this, and no yoga practice will help, because if without searching for this I you go on practicing, whatsoever the practice, this I will be strengthened by every practice. If you meditate, this I will say, “I am meditating.” If you renounce the world this I will say, “I have renounced the world.” If you become a sannyasin this I will say, “I have become a sannyasin – I have attained this, I have attained that.” In this world or in that world, this I will go on being strengthened by your efforts.
So it happens that a person who has practiced much austerity becomes an egoist more subtly. He becomes more an island rather than becoming part of the great mainland, the great continent. He becomes a peak of ego. This is possible for everyone. So it is not only wealth or prestige or worldly things and possessions that will become food for the I – I can convert anything into its food.
So before entering on the spiritual path, Buddha’s advice has to be remembered always. He has said that before you enter any path, first find out whether this I exists or not. Only then will your path be spiritual. Otherwise, whatsoever the path may be, it will ultimately prove worldly, because this I will exploit it.

Once Mulla Nasruddin came back from the capital to his village. The whole village gathered around him to ask the news about the capital, “What is happening there?” And in those days of no newspapers it was a big event for the village: one man has been to the capital and has come back. And no ordinary man – Mulla Nasruddin himself, the only literate man in the town.
When everyone is gathered, Mulla is just silent, very serious. He has come back from the capital. The whole village is just mad, crazy to know what has happened. Then Mulla said, “At this time I will not tell you much, only one thing. I met the emperor. And not only that – he has spoken to me. But the details later on….”
The village dispersed. The whole village became agog over only one thing: Mulla Nasruddin has met the emperor. And not only that – the emperor has spoken to him!
But one man still remained there and persisted, “What has he said? Tell me, Mulla, otherwise I am not going to leave. I cannot sleep now I am so excited. What has he said? Just a little, don’t go into details, but just the essence.”
So Mulla said, “There are not many details. When he saw me standing there he said, ‘Get out of my way!’ This is the only thing he has said.”
But the villager was satisfied because these were no ordinary words – spoken by an emperor. Exactly the same words spoken by an emperor he has heard! He was satisfied and he said, “It is so fortunate to be born in your village, Mulla. I have heard the same words spoken by an emperor. He himself said to you, ‘Get out of my way!’”
Nasruddin said, “He himself. He came near me and said it. And not in a whisper, he said it in such a loud voice that everyone heard: ‘Get out of my way!’ He cried; really, he screamed.”

Mind is such, the ego is such, that it tries to fulfill itself in each and every way. Subtle are its ways, even foolish but subtle. If you do something towards spirituality, the ego may poison it. Before going into that dimension, remember that you are not an ego. Find it out. Once this ego is not there, everything becomes spiritual and every path becomes a spiritual path. Then wherever you go, you will go to the divine. Then every path leads to the divine.
With the ego, no path leads to the divine. With the ego, go to Mecca or go to Jerusalem or go to Kashi, you will reach hell. You cannot go anywhere else because the ego is the hell. Without the ego, go anywhere, even to hell, and you will find heaven there – because without the ego everywhere is heaven. The ego is the root cause of all misery.
These are the three dimensions of stillness: silence as soundlessness, silence as no movement of the mind, silence as egolessness. Start with any one and the other two will follow, by and by. Or, you can start working on all the three, then the whole work will be speeded up. But don’t go on thinking, because thinking is a movement, thinking is a noise, and thinking is a process of the ego.
Stop thinking and start doing. Only doing helps, only doing can make you existential. Only through doing is the jump and the explosion.

Osho,
Modern man, in this industrialized age of speed, hurry, activity and tensions, feels completely exhausted after a day's work. In this situation, it becomes difficult for him to have inner silence and stillness.
Please explain what the reasons are and what the way is.
The situation appears so. It is not. Rather, the situation is quite the vice versa. You are not exhausted because of the industrialized age and the work and the tensions et cetera; you are exhausted because you have lost the contact with your inner stillness. The work is not the problem: you are the problem. Neither is the age the problem: you are the problem.
Don’t go on thinking that modern man is more burdened with work. He is less burdened. A primitive man is more burdened. Mechanization, industrialization, they all help to save time. That’s what they are for, and they have saved much time. But because you have time but no stillness, because you now have time and no use for it, that creates problems. A primitive man is less in problems, not because he is silent and still, but because he has no time – no time to create troubles for himself. You have more time and you don’t know what to do.
This time can be used for an inner journey. And if man cannot use it for that inwardness, he is done for. Then there is no hope, because now more and more time will be saved. Soon the whole world will be under automatic mechanization. You will have time and you will not know what to do, and for the first time in history man will have achieved the utopia always longed for, desired. Then he will be at a loss as to what to do with it.
You have time, more than any other age. And you are not exhausted because of the work, you are exhausted because you have lost the contact, or you don’t know how to go deep in yourself and be revitalized. You have even lost sleep. That was the natural method to go in; then you are fresh in the morning, recharged, revitalized. But now we have even lost the sleep, and we have lost the sleep because of the mechanical revolution, because now your bodies are not forced to work. Because of less work you are less exhausted, and because of less exertion you cannot sleep.
A villager still sleeps deeply; because his body is so exhausted, he falls deep into sleep. Your body is not exhausted; that’s why you go on turning in your bed. Machines have replaced labor. You are less exhausted, remember this, and then you cannot sleep. And then even the natural source of inner touch is lost. In the morning you are more exhausted than in the evening, and then the whole day begins again. You feel again exhausted.
We are living an exhausted life. It is not that we are exhausted just in the evening, in the morning we are also exhausted. What has happened?
Man needs continuous contact with the inner source. So don’t ask me how an exhausted man can meditate. It is like asking me how a diseased man, an ill man, can take medicine. He needs it, and only he needs it. You are exhausted – meditation will be a medicine to you.
And don’t say that you have no time. You have much time, much that you can use. And everyone is wasting time in so many ways. People are playing cards. Ask them and they say, “We are killing time.” The cinema halls are packed. What are they doing there? Killing time. Hotels, clubs…what are they doing there? Killing time! But you cannot kill time, only time kills you.
So no one is now without time. And don’t think that time is a limited quantity. Don’t think that every day consists of twenty-four hours, no. It is up to you, it depends on you. How many hours you put into it, it depends on that.

Someone asked Emerson, “What is your age?”
He said, “Three hundred and sixty years.”
It was unbelievable, and the man said, “Pardon me, it seems I have not heard you rightly. Tell again how many you are saying.”
Emerson repeated loudly, “Three hundred and sixty years!”
Then man said. “I cannot believe it. This is impossible. You look not more than sixty.”
Emerson said, “That’s right, you are right. My actual age is sixty, but I have lived six times more than you. I have used my sixty years in such a way that they have proved to be three hundred and sixty years.”
The man was nearabout fifty and Emerson said, “If you say that you are fifty, the same will be the problem for me. I cannot believe it, because you look to me not more than thirteen. You have simply wasted, you have not lived. Wasting is one thing, living is another.”

So every day is not a fixed thing. A buddha can use it in such a way that it becomes a life. It is not how much it is, ultimately it depends how much you put into it. You are a creator. We create our time, we create our space, we create our milieu, through living. So whatsoever your position in life and whatsoever your work and whatsoever your worldly situation, don’t make it an excuse. You can meditate all the same. And meditation doesn’t need time, it needs a deep understanding, not time.
And meditation is not in conflict with other things. For example, if you are eating, eat with awareness. No extra time is needed. Rather, on the contrary, you will save time because you will eat less. With awareness you will eat less, with awareness you will become more efficient. You will save time. With awareness you will lose less energy, you will dissipate less energy. And even after a whole day’s work, you will be as fresh as in the morning. Because it is not work that exhausts you, it is the attitude.
You walk to your office – a two-mile walk – you go to your office, and that exhausts you. But if it is Sunday and you are just walking for pleasure, and you walk to your office and come back, then it is just a play and it is not going to exhaust you. Rather, it will refresh you. If you are doing a certain thing as work, it will exhaust you. If you are doing the same thing as play, it will refresh you. It is not the work, it is the attitude. The mind which lives in meditation transforms all work into a play, and the mind which is not meditative will transform even a play into work.
Look at people who are playing cards – tense. They are not playing; it has become work. Now it is a problem of life and death. It is not a play. If they are defeated, they will not be able to sleep in the night. And even if they win, they will not be able to sleep in the night. Either way they are going to be excited. It is not a play, it will not refresh them. It will only exhaust them.
Look at children: they are doing more work than you but they are never exhausted, always bubbling with energy. Why? Everything is a play – everything is a play. Because of industrialization, and sooner or later because of totally automatic processes coming in, man will have only one dimension, that is the dimension of play. Work will be useless then, and all the old teachings that “work is divine” will be nonsense; that “work is duty and work is divine and one must do work,” they all will become nonsense.
Leisure, pleasure, fun, festivity, play, will be the key terms for the future. Seriousness will be taken as a disease, playfulness will become the symbol of sanity. Because time will be saved more and more, and even old men will have to be like children playing. Only then will they be able to exist; otherwise they will commit suicide.
The whole of human history up to now has been work-oriented. From now on it will be play-oriented. And meditation gives you a new childhood, a new innocence, a new festivity. Then the whole life becomes a ceremony. It is not work.
So don’t make excuses. They may look valid – they are dangerous. And meditation is not in conflict with anything. You are going to your office, go meditatively. You are doing work in your office, do it meditatively, do it relaxedly. You will not be exhausted. Take everything as a play and you will not be exhausted. Rather, the work will become a pleasure.
Meditation gives you a new quality of mind. So it is not a question of whether you have time or not. I am not saying that you have to meditate for three hours daily, so take three hours out of your life, out of your worklife – no. If you can take, it is good. If you cannot take, don’t make it an excuse. Then try to turn and change and transform your work into a meditative act.
You are writing something, write with full awareness. You are digging a hole in the earth, dig it with full awareness. Whether you are working on the street or in the office or in the market, do it with full awareness. Remain in the present and then see: you will not be exhausted. You will have more time, more energy, less dissipation; and ultimately it will become possible that your whole life becomes just a play.

Spread the love