Osho on Russian Ballet Dancer Nijinsky

Born on 12^th March, 1890, in Kiev, Vaslav Nijinsky was a ballet dancer of almost legendary fame, celebrated for his spectacular leaps and sensitive interpretations. Nijinsky was introduced to dance by his parents, who were senior dancers with the travelling Setov opera company, and his early childhood was spent touring with the company. At age nine Nijinsky was accepted at the Imperial Ballet School in St. Petersburg, the pre-eminent ballet school in the world. In 1907 he graduated and became a member of the Imperial Ballet, starting in the rank of coryphée instead of in the corps de ballet, and already taking starring roles. Nijinsky soon became the company’s star male dancer, causing an enormous stir amongst audiences whenever he performed. In ordinary life he appeared unremarkable and was withdrawn in conversation.

Nijinsky took the creative reins and choreographed ballets which pushed boundaries and stirred controversy. His ballets were L’après-midi d’un faune (The Afternoon of a Faun, based on Claude Debussy’s Prelude a l’apres – midi d’un faune) (1912); Jeux (1913); and Till Eulenspiegel (1916). These introduced his audiences to the new direction of modern dance.

During the end years of his lifetime, his mental condition deteriorated; he was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1919 and committed to a mental asylum. For the next 30 years he was in and out of institutions, never dancing in public again.

Osho talks about Nijinsky and says, “It is said about Nijinsky, one of the greatest dancers in the world, that there were moments when he would take jumps, and he would come back so slowly that it was almost impossible. He would fall back featherlike, as if gravitation had lost its power over him. Scientists were worried: “This should not happen, it cannot happen” — but it was happening. No other dancer has been capable in that way. And of course, Nijinsky went mad; he became a Baul. His is one of the madnesses which has not yet been understood. And because he was in the West, it was impossible to comprehend what had happened to him. He was confined to a psychiatric hospital, forced, given electric shocks, insulin shots. Had he been in the East he would have become one of the greatest Bauls. His madness was nothing to be treated, it was something to be revered.

But how did he become mad? He became mad through his dancing. When he was asked what happens to him, he said, “It happens only when I am lost, so I cannot say anything about it. If I am, then it never happens. I have tried it. If I am there, deliberately trying it, consciously trying, it never happens. But there are moments when I am lost. Then simply, I don’t know who jumps — and then it happens. I am also surprised. I have no explanation for it, but it happens only when I am lost.” That is what Bauls say: when you dance and you become a whirlwind and, by and by, you are completely lost in your dancing, it happens. Something breaks down inside you. The barriers are lost. You become one unity. A great orgasm spreads all over your being. You are in tune with existence in those moments.”

THE BUDDHA SAID:

LOOK UP TO HEAVEN AND DOWN ON EARTH AND THEY WILL REMIND YOU OF THEIR IMPERMANENCY. LOOK ABOUT THE WORLD AND IT WILL REMIND YOU OF ITS IMPERMANENCY. BUT WHEN YOU GAIN SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT YOU SHALL THEN FIND WISDOM. THE KNOWLEDGE THUS ATTAINED LEADS YOU ANON TO THE WAY. LOOK UP TO HEAVEN AND DOWN ON EARTH AND THEY WILL REMIND YOU OF THEIR IMPERMANENCY.

Look. You don’t look, you never look. Before you look you have an idea. You never look in purity, you never look unprejudiced. You always carry some prejudice, you always carry some opinion, ideology, scripture — your own experience or others’ experiences, but you always carry something in the mind. You are never naked with reality. And when Buddha says, LOOK UP TO HEAVEN AND DOWN ON EARTH, he means look with a naked eye, with no coatings of opinions, ideas, experiences, borrowed or otherwise.

Have you seen a naked eye? As far as humanity is concerned it is very rare to come across a naked eye. All eyes are so dressed up. Somebody has a christian eye, somebody has a hindu eye, somebody has a mohammedan eye. They look differently. When a Mohammedan reads the Gita he never reads the same thing that a Hindu reads in it. When a Jaina reads the Gita he reads something else again. A Hindu can read the Bible but he will never read that which a Christian reads. The Bible is the same. From where does this difference come? The difference must be coming from the eye, the difference must be coming from the mind. Have you ever read a single page of a book without bringing your mind in it, without corrupting it by your mind, by your past? Without interpreting it, have you ever looked at anything in life? If not then you have not looked at all, then you don’t have real eyes. You have just holes not eyes. The eye has to be receptive, not aggressive. When you have a certain idea in the eye, in your mind, it is aggressive. It immediately imposes itself on things. When you have an empty eye, naked, undressed, not Christian, not Hindu, not Communist, just pure look, innocent… primal innocence — innocent as an animal’s eye or a child, a newborn child. A just-born child looks around — he has no idea of what is what. What is beautiful and what is ugly, he has no idea. That primal innocence has to be. Only then you will be able to see what Buddha says.

You have been looking in life but you have not come to see that all is impermanence. Everything is dying, everything is decaying, everything is on a death procession. People are standing in a death queue. Look around — everything rushing towards death. Everything is fleeting, momentary, fluxlike; nothing seems to be of eternal value, nothing seems to abide, nothing seems to hold, nothing seems to remain. Everything just goes on and on and on, and goes on changing. What else is a dream? Buddha says this life, this world that you live in, that you are surrounded with, that you have created around yourself, is but a dream — impermanent, temporary. Don’t make your abode there, otherwise you will suffer. Because nobody can be contented with the temporary. By the time you think it is in your hands it is gone. By the time you think you have possessed it, it is no more there. You struggle for it — by the time you achieve it, it has disappeared. The beauty is fleeting, love is fleeting, everything in this life is fleeting. You are running to catch shadows. They look real; by the time you have arrived they prove mirages.

LOOK UP TO HEAVEN AND DOWN ON EARTH AND THEY WILL REMIND YOU OF THEIR IMPERMANENCY. LOOK ABOUT THE WORLD AND IT WILL REMIND YOU OF ITS IMPERMANENCY.

It is one of the most fundamental principles of Gautam the Buddha — that one should become aware of the impermanent world we are surrounded with. Then immediately you will be able to understand why Buddha calls it a dream, a maya, illusion. In the East our definition of truth is that which abides forever, and of untruth, that which is there this moment and next moment is not there. Untruth is that which is temporary, momentary, impermanent. And truth is that which is, always is, has been, will be. Behind these fleeting shadows find the eternal, penetrate to the eternal, because there can be bliss only with the eternal; misery only with the momentary.

BUT WHEN YOU GAIN SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT…That’s why I was reminded of my own experience and I talked about it to you…BUT WHEN YOU GAIN SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT YOU SHALL THEN FIND WISDOM.

Wisdom cannot be found through scriptures; it is an experience. It is not knowledge, wisdom is not knowledge. You cannot gather it from others, you cannot borrow it. It is not information. You cannot learn it from the scriptures. There is only one way to become wise and that is to enter into a live experience of life. Something is said by Buddha — you hear it; something I say — you hear it — but you don’t become wise by hearing it. It will become knowledge. You can repeat it, you can repeat it even in a better way. You can become very skillful, efficient, in repeating it. You can say it in a better language, but you don’t have the experience. You have never tasted the wine yourself. You have simply seen some drunkard moving, wobbling on the road, fallen in a gutter. You have simply watched a drunkard, how he moves, how he stumbles, but you don’t know what the experience is. You will have to become a drunkard — there is no other way. You can watch a thousand and one drunkards and you can collect all information about them, but that will be from the outside and the experience is inner. That will be from without, and you will collect it as a spectator. And the experience cannot be attained by seeing, it can be attained only by being.

Now the modern world has become very obsessed by seeing; the modern world is the spectator’s world. People are sitting for hours in the movie houses, just watching, doing nothing. In the West people are glued to their chairs for hours, six hours, eight hours even, just sitting before their TVs. You listen to somebody singing and you see somebody dancing and you see somebody making love — that’s why people are so much interested in pornography — but you are a spectator. The modern man is the falsest man that has ever existed on the earth, and his falsity consists in that he thinks he can know by just seeing, just by being a spectator. People are sitting for hours seeing hockey matches, volley ball matches, cricket matches — for hours. When are you going to play yourself? When are you going to love somebody? When are you going to dance and sing and be?

This is a very borrowed life. Somebody dances for you; maybe you can enjoy it, but how can you know the beauty of dance unless you dance? It is something inner. What happens when a person is dancing? What happens to his innermost core? Nijinsky, one of the greatest dancers, used to say that there come moments when he disappears, only the dance remains. Those are the peak moments — when the dancer is not there and only the dance is. That’s what Buddha is saying — when the self is not there. Now Nijinsky is moving into an ecstasy, and you are just sitting there watching the movement. Of course those movements are beautiful. Nijinsky’s movements have a grace, a tremendous beauty, but it is nothing compared to what he is feeling inside. His dance is a beauty, even when you are just a spectator, but nothing compared to what is happening inside him. He used to say that there are moments when gravitation disappears. I can understand because I have come across the feeling myself when gravitation disappears. And it was only for moments that gravitation disappeared for him. Now I have lived for years without gravitation. I know what he means.

Even scientists were very much puzzled, because there were moments in Nijinsky’s dance when he would leap and jump — and those leaps were tremendous, almost impossible leaps. A man cannot leap that way; the gravitation does not allow. And the most beautiful and amazing part was that when Nijinsky would be coming back from the leap he would come so slowly that it is impossible. He would come so slowly as if a leaf is falling from a tree… very slowly, very slowly, very slowly. It is not possible, it is against the physical law, it is against physics. The gravitation does not make any exceptions, not even for a Nijinsky. And he was asked again and again, ‘What happens? How do you fall so slowly? Because it is not within your power to control — the gravitation pulls you.’ He said, ‘It does not happen always, only rarely — when the dancer disappears. Then sometimes I am also puzzled, surprised, not only you. I see myself coming so slowly, so gracefully, and I know that the gravitation does not exist in that moment.’ He must be functioning in another dimension where the physical law does not exist, where another law starts working that spiritualists call the law of levitation.

And it seems absolutely rational and logical to have both the laws, because each law has to be counterbalanced by another law in the opposite direction. If there is light there is darkness, if there is life there is death, if there is gravitation there must be levitation that pulls you up. There must be ways where a person is pulled up. There are stories… especially the story about Mohammed — that he went to heaven with his physical body; not only with his physical body, with his horse. Sitting on the horse, he simply went to heaven, upwards. It looks absurd, Mohammedans have not been able to prove it, but the meaning is clear. The story may have not exactly happened, but the meaning is clear. The meaning is to be understood, it is very symbolical. It simply says that there is a law of levitation and if Mohammed cannot be pulled by levitation, then who will be pulled? He is the right person, a person who exists not. The ego is under gravitation, the no-ego is not under gravitation — a weightlessness arises.

Nijinsky went mad because he was simply a dancer and he never knew anything about meditation, ecstasy, enlightenment. That became a trouble for him. If you don’t understand and if you don’t move with awareness and suddenly you stumble upon something which cannot be explained by ordinary laws, you will go mad because you will be disturbed by it. It is so weird, it is so eerie. You cannot explain it. You start getting disturbed by it. He himself started getting disturbed by the phenomenon. Finally it was so staggering it disturbed his whole mind. God is very destructive. If you don’t go rightly, you will be destroyed, because god is fire. Many people go mad if they don’t move rightly. If they don’t move under right guidance they can go mad. It is not a child’s play, one has to understand.

And god — if he happens like an accident — you will not be able to absorb. Your old world will be shattered and you will not be able to create a new order, a new understanding. Because for the new understanding you will need new concepts, a new framework, a new gestalt. That is the whole meaning of finding a master. It is not just from gullibility that people become attached to masters, it has a scientific base to it. Moving into the unknown is a tremendous risk. One should move with somebody who has already moved into it. One should move hand in hand with somebody who knows the territory. Otherwise the thing can happen so shatteringly that you will be at a loss. Many people go mad if they don’t know that somebody’s help is needed. Somebody is needed like a midwife. You will be born, but somebody will be needed to watch over it. His very presence will be helpful; you can relax. The midwife is there, the doctor is there — you can relax…

The same happens to a disciple. It is a process of rebirth. A master is needed. But from the master don’t go on collecting knowledge; from the master take hints and move into experience. I talk about meditation. You can do two things. You can collect whatsoever I say about meditation, you can compile it. You can become a great, knowledgeable person about meditation — because every day I go on talking about meditation from different dimensions in different ways. You can collect all that, you can get a Ph. D. from any university. But that is not going to make you wise, unless you meditate. So whatsoever I am saying, try it in life. While I am here don’t waste time in collecting knowledge. That you can do without me, that you can do in a library. While I am here take a jump, a quantum leap into wisdom. EXPERIENCE these things I am saying to you.

BUT WHEN YOU GAIN SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT YOU SHALL THEN FIND WISDOM.

Wisdom is only through one’s own experience. It is never from anybody else. Wisdom always happens as a flower opens… just like that. When your heart opens, you have a fragrance — that fragrance is wisdom. You can bring a plastic flower from the market, you can deceive neighbours… Plastic flowers don’t need water, they are not alive. They don’t need soil, they are not alive. They don’t need fertilizers, they are not alive. They don’t need any manure, they are not alive. Real flowers are like wisdom. Wisdom is like real flowers, knowledge is plastic. That’s why it is cheap. It is very cheap, you can get it for nothing, because it is borrowed. Experience is a radical change in your life; you cannot be the same. If you want to become wise you will have to go through transformations, a million and one transformations. You will have to pass through fire. Only then whatsoever is there which is ugly and useless will be burnt, and you will come out as pure gold.

THE KNOWLEDGE THUS ATTAINED LEADS YOU ANON TO THE WAY.

…And the wisdom only. The knowledge thus attained through one’s own experience, through one’s own enlightening experience, through one’s own satori, samadhi, makes you capable of falling in tune with the way. The Buddha calls it dhamma, tao. Then you are in harmony — what Pythagoras calls harmonia. Then you are suddenly not there, only the law is there, the dhamma is there, the way is there — or call it god… is there. Then you are simply with the whole. You go with it wherever it goes. Then you don’t have any goal of your own. Then the whole’s destiny is your destiny. Then there is no anxiety, no tension. Then one is immensely relaxed. In fact, one is so relaxed that one is not! The ego is nothing but accumulated tensions through lives. When you are totally relaxed and you look within, there is nobody. It is simple purity, emptiness, vastness.

Source:

Listen to complete discourse at mentioned below link.

Discourse Series: The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 2 Chapter#11

Chapter title: Spiritual enlightenment

10 September 1976 am in Buddha Hall

References:

Osho has spoken extensively on ‘art, poetry, music, dance, painting’ and painters & poets like Picasso, Michael Angelo, Salvador Dali, Van Gogh, Byron, Bhavabhuti, Coleridge, Dinkar, D.H. Lawrence, Kalidas, Kahlil Gibran, Keats, Omar Khayyam, Milton, Yeats, Shelley, Tagore and many more in the course of His talks. More on this subject can be referred to in the following books/discourse titles:

Ah This
Be Still and Know
Beyond Psychology
Come Follow to You Vol.1-4
The Guest
Going All the Way
This Is It
The Book of Wisdom
The Path of the Mystic
A Sudden Clash of Thunder
Beyond Enlightenment
From the False to the Truth
From Ignorance to Innocence