Osho on Enlightened Tao Master Ko Hsuan

Ko Hsuan was a Chinese Taoist who lived in the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220) and Three Kingdoms period (220–280) of China. He was the ancestor of Ge Hong and a resident of Danyang Commandery in the state of Eastern Wu during the Three Kingdoms period. He is remembered as a mythological member of the Chinese Ge family and a prominent figure in the development of early Chinese Daoism. Ko Hsuan became a distinctive “Master of Esoterica” (excelled at breathing exercises). These exercises were dependent on a particular diet that avoided consuming grains and alcohol.

Ko Hsuan ‘s life was dedicated to reading and following the various scriptures handed to him from various spirits after his parents passed when he was the age of sixteen. He is known for many other feats, as he was an accomplished Alchemist. He had many gifts such as mind control, the power to levitate, heal the sick, and also the ability to exorcize evil spirits. He would occasionally use these gifts to entertain at various social events. Throughout history he received many names and titles, often denoting his beliefs or skill set. Ko Hsuan finally achieved immortality in true style, disappearing in the night with a gust of wind leaving only two things, his clothes as he was wearing them and enough legend to last many centuries.

Osho, talks about Ko Hsuan and says, “Ko Hsuan starts each sutra with these beautiful words: THE VENERABLE MASTER SAID…

He does not mention the name of the Master. In fact, names are of no use as far as a Master is concerned because a single Master represents all the Masters of the past, of the present, and of the future, too, because the taste of a Master is the same. Whether you come close to a Buddha or to a Mahavira or to a Moses or to Mohammed, it makes no difference. You will have the same taste, the same ecstasy, the same perfume. The same joy will pervade you; the same dance will start happening in your heart. Buddha has said again and again that you can taste the sea from anywhere: you will always find it salty. So are the Masters — names are irrelevant. Ko Hsuan does not mention the name of the Master — names are utilitarian. A Master represents the ultimate, the nameless. He is the spokesman of the nameless experience — let him also be nameless. That is his message.”

OSHO, WHAT IS YOUR FUNDAMENTAL TEACHING TO YOUR SANNYASINS?

Gourishankar Mehta,

It seems you must be a total stranger to this place, otherwise such a question is not possible, because I have got no teaching. I am not a teacher at all; I don’t teach you anything. Teaching means imparting information. Teaching is basically indoctrination, giving you certain beliefs, conditioning your mind for a certain ideology. I am against all ideologies, I am against all doctrines, because they all help and strengthen your mind. My work here consists to help you to go beyond the mind. You are not supposed to learn something here but to unlearn; you have to go through an unconditioning process. And I don’t recondition you. That is what is being done by Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans and everybody else. If a Hindu wants to become a Christian he will have to go through two processes: one will be he will have to be unconditioned as a Hindu and then reconditioned as a Christian. But only conditioning changes, nothing else. Your garments change, your consciousness remains the same.

Consciousness is experienced only when you are unconditioned and not reconditioned again, when you are left alone to yourself, utterly innocent. I call it purity. That’s the essence of Ko Hsuan’s Tao. These sutras of Ko Hsuan are called THE CLASSIC OF PURITY. Tao has no doctrines, no teachings. It believes in absolute emptiness of the mind, in nothingness. When you are utterly empty you come in contact with the beyond. The beyond is not far away, but you are so full of rubbish, so full of junk, that there is no space for the beyond to enter in you. It is like a room is full of furniture. Empty the room of all furniture: on the one hand the room is emptied, all furniture is removed from the room; on the other hand the room is becoming full of emptiness, the sky is entering, the space is entering — the room is becoming more spacious. That’s what happens when your being is unconditioned and left alone.

I don’t want to teach you anything at all. I don’t want you to believe in God because what is the need to believe in God? When God can be experienced, why believe? Belief is a poor substitute. When you can have the real thing why go for plastic flowers? When you can grow the red roses, why hanker for something unreal and synthetic? All beliefs are unreal. I would like you to be knowers, not believers. I would like you to be seers, not Hindus, not Christians, not Buddhists. Yes, I would like you to be a Buddha, an awakened being. I would like you to be a Christ, but not a Christian. And the difference is tremendous. Friedrich Nietzsche used to say that the first and the last Christian died two thousand years before on the cross. Let me repeat: the first and the last Christian. Friedrich Nietzsche himself was a madman, but sometimes mad people have great insights which the so-called sane go on missing. Nietzsche has many insights. This is one of… very significant statement that he has made.

Be a Christ. Why not be crowned by the experience of God himself? I don’t teach you about God because all teachings are about. The word “about” means around. All teachings are about and about around and around; they go in circles. They make you knowledgeable but they don’t make you knowers. Gourishankar Mehta, I don’t have any teaching to teach. I have certainly a truth but it cannot be taught. Truth can only be caught, it can never be taught. That is the whole meaning of Satsang, of being in the company of a Master. That is the whole purpose of Sannyas: being in tune with me.

Truth is a transmission beyond words. Words move from one mind to the other mind. What I am saying to you is from one mind to another mind. What is not said is far more important. Listen to my silences the pauses in between. Listen to the gaps. When you are in tune with me, in deep harmony with me, when there is no fight going on between you and me — no resistance, no conflict no argument… And there is no need of any argument because I am not trying to convince you of anything, I am not trying to persuade you to become followers, to become imitators. My effort is totally different: it is that of communion, not of communication. When two hearts are beating together in rhythm, in a kind of synchronicity, when they are dancing together hand in hand, in a deep loving embrace, then something is transmitted, something jumps from one heart to the other heart. It is like bringing an unlit candle close to alit candle. When you bring the unlit candle very close to the lit candle; the flame jumps from the lighted candle to the unlit candle. The lighted candle loses nothing, but the unlit candle gains infinity.

I have no teaching. I don’t give any discipline to my sannyasins. I want them to be individuals, I don’t want to make them carbon copies. I would like them to be themselves, authentically themselves. My whole longing is to create individuality in you, not a collective mind. Christianity is creating a collective mind, muslims are creating another collectivity, Hindus still another, and so on and so forth. My trust is not in the collective mind, my trust is in the individual. I am an individualist; I believe in the supreme value of the individual. There is nothing higher than the individual.

There is a beautiful saying of a Baul mystic, Chandidas: SAHAR UPAR MANUSATYA. TAHAR UPAR NAHIN. Chandidas says: The highest truth is the individual man, there is nothing higher than that, there is nothing more valuable than that. The individual is not a means to anything — to communism, to socialism, to Hinduism, to Jainism, to Buddhism, to fascism. And up to now, hitherto, for thousands of years man has been treated always as a means to some end — any stupid end is enough excuse to sacrifice millions of individuals. I don’t want to sacrifice any individual, because there is nothing higher than the individual. My respect for the individual is absolute, unconditional. The individual is an end unto himself. I want to help you to support you so that you can be yourself.

You ask me: WHAT IS YOUR FUNDAMENTAL TEACHING…

There is something fundamental, but it is not teaching. It is my love, not my ideology. It is my drunkenness that would like to impart to you, a spark that I would like to ignite your soul with it, a fire.

Source:

Listen to complete discourse at mentioned below link.

Discourse name: Tao: The Golden Gate, Vol 2 Chapter title: It is always today Chapter #2

22 June 1980 am in Buddha Hall

References:

Osho has spoken on many Mystics like Dadu, Farid, Gurdjieff, J. Krishnamurti, Kabir, Nanak, Meher Baba, Patanjali, Swami Ram Teerth, Rumi, Sahajo, Sai Baba, Saraha, Socrates, Tilopa, Zarathustra and many more in His discourses. Some of these can be referred to in the following books/discourses:

1. Sermons in Stones
2. Come Come Yet Again Come
3. The Hidden Splendour
4. Beyond Enlightenment
5. The New Dawn
6. The Sword and The Lotus
7. The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty
8. Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries
9. Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 1
10. The Path of Love
11. The Book of Wisdom
12. The Tantra Vision, Vol 1, 2
13. Tantra: The Supreme Understanding