"You can hear the ancient music in the pines because it is eternal music, it is never lost. You have lost
the capacity to hear it. The music is eternal; once you regain your capacity, suddenly it is there again. It has always been
there, only you were not there. Be here now and you can also see clouds a thousand miles away, and hear ancient music in the
pines."
+
"Life is in living. It is not a thing, it is a process. There is no way to attain to life except by living
it, except by being alive – flowing – streaming with it. If you are seeking the meaning of life in some dogma,
in some philosophy, in some theology, that is the sure way to miss life and meaning both.
"Life
is not somewhere waiting for you, it is happening in you. It is not in the future as a goal to be arrived at, it is herenow,
this very moment – in your breathing, circulating in your blood, beating in your heart. Whatsoever you are is your life,
and if you start seeking meaning somewhere else you will miss it. Man has done that for centuries.
"Concepts have become very important, explanations have become very important – and the real has been completely
forgotten. We don’t look to that which is already here, we want rationalizations.
"I
have heard a very beautiful story.
"Some years ago a successful American had a serious identity
crisis. He sought help from psychiatrists but nothing came of it, for there were none who could tell him the meaning of life
– which is what he wanted to know. By and by he learned of a venerable and incredibly wise guru who lived in a mysterious
and most inaccessible region of the Himalayas. Only that guru, he came to believe, would tell him what life means and what
his role in it ought to be. So he sold all his worldly possessions and began his search for the all-knowing guru. He spent
eight years wandering from village to village throughout the Himalayas in an effort to find him. And then one day he chanced
upon a shepherd who told him where the guru lived and how to reach the place.
"It took him
almost a year to find him, but he eventually did. There he came upon his guru, who was indeed venerable, in fact well over
one hundred years old. The guru consented to help him, especially when he learned of all the sacrifices the man had made towards
this end. ‘What can I do for you, my son?’ asked the guru.
"I need to know the
meaning of life,’ said the man.
To this the guru replied, without hesitation, ‘Life,’ he said, ‘is
a river without end.’ ‘A river without end?’ said the man in a startled surprise. ‘After coming all
this way to find you, all you have to tell me is that life is a river without end?’ The guru was shaken, shocked. He
became very angry and he said, ‘You mean it is not?’
"Nobody can give you the
meaning of your life. It is your life, the meaning has also to be yours. Himalayas won’t help. Nobody except you can
come upon it. It is your life and it is only accessible to you. Only in living will the mystery be revealed to you."
+
"Science
has not been able to demystify existence. Now this is recognized not by ordinary technicians but by geniuses, because they
are the pioneers; they can see the dawn very close by, they are the prophets. Albert Einstein says that science has failed
in demystifying existence, that on the contrary it has mystified things even more.
"For example,
it was so easy in the old days, just a hundred years ago, for the scientist to say that all is matter. Now matter has disappeared;
in neo-physics there is no entity called matter. The deeper the physicist went into the world of matter, the more matter was
not to be found at all – it is pure energy. How to define energy now? Is it material? Energy cannot be material; energy
is something totally different from matter. Matter is static, energy is dynamic; matter is a noun, energy is a verb. Matter
is measurable. That is exactly the meaning of the word matter; it comes from measure, the root means measurable. Matter can
be measured, that’s why it is called matter. Energy is immeasurable, it cannot be called matter. And as the physicist
has entered into the world of energy, he has become more and more puzzled; never before has he been so puzzled.
"Mystics have always been in awe before existence. The physicist is for the first time in awe, because he has for
the first time touched something very vital; otherwise he was just looking from the outside. A stone is just a stone from
the outside. The physicist now knows that the stone is not just a stone – it contains universes. A single small pebble
that you can hold in your hand contains so much atomic energy that the whole universe can grow out of it, contains so much
atomic energy that the whole universe can be destroyed by it. It is not just a pebble any more and it is not solid any more.
You are holding it in your hand and you know it is solid, but your knowing is no longer scientific. It only appears solid;
it is liquid. And it looks so available, manipulatable, you can do things with it. But you don’t know its mysteries
which are not manipulatable, and the mysteries are really immense – almost as immense as the mystery of God itself.
"The modern physicist is using the language of the mystics for the first time. Eddington
said, "The universe no longer looks like a thing but like a thought."This, from the mouth of a scientist, a Nobel prize-winner
– the universe looks like a thought and not like a thing? That means the universe is more consciousness than matter.
And matter has been analyzed, our penetration has become deeper; we have come across atoms, electrons, neutrons – and
we are utterly mystified, at a loss even to express what we have come across. We don’t have the language, the right
language for it, because we have never known it.
"Now the right language has to be found
in the words of the mystics. A buddha will be helpful, a Lao Tzu will be helpful. And scientists are looking into the words
of the buddhas to find the right language, because these are the people who have been talking about paradox, mystery. And
now science is coming across paradoxes."
+
"Enlightenment is the goal of human beings. But those who are enlightened
cannot remain static; they will have to move, they will have to change. And now they have only one thing to lose – themselves.
"They have enjoyed everything. They have enjoyed the purity of individuality; now they have
to enjoy the disappearing of individuality. They have seen the beauty of individuality; now they have to see the disappearance
and its beauty, and the silence that follows, that abysmal serenity that follows."
+
"This is the situation of many
people of intelligence. Either they are going insane…you can see it, psychotherapy and other schools of therapies are
growing fast, and they are the most highly paid people. People are going through psychoanalysis for years at a time. In fact
people have started boasting. In women’s clubs you can go and hear it, that one woman will be saying, ’How many
years have you been in psychoanalysis? – just seven years? I have been in psychoanalysis for fifteen years.’ It
has become something of pride. But to be in psychoanalysis simply means you are insane; otherwise why are you taking the treatment?
And it is spreading.
"But the most intelligent people are rushing towards the East to find
some way, some method, some meditation – Yoga, Zen, Sufism, Hasidism. Somewhere somebody must know how to get over this
critical stage, how to go beyond the traditional mind and still remain centered, sane, and intelligent. Thousands of people
are moving towards the East.
"It is very hilarious because thousands of people are coming
from the East to the West to study science, medicine, engineering, electronics, and the people who know all these are going
to the East, just to learn how to sit silently and do nothing.
"But it is a beautiful time.
The grip of society is lost. Yes, the mediocre will suffer, but anyway they were not enjoying, they were not really living;
they were simply being hypocrites. By being insane at least they will be real, authentic. They won’t lose anything –
of course they won’t gain much…
"The people who will go beyond mind will create
the new man, the new mind. And the most special thing to be remembered about the new mind is that it will never become a tradition,
that it will be constantly renewed. If it becomes a tradition it will be again the same thing.
"The
new mind has to become continuously new, every day new, ready to accept any unexpected experience, any unexpected truth…just
available, vulnerable. It will be a tremendous excitement, a great ecstasy, a great challenge.
"So
I don’t think this crisis is bad; it is good. A few people will lose their masks, and will be actually what they are
– neurotic, psychotic – but at least they will be true and they will be honest. You may think they are mad; they
are not mad, they are simply in a state of very great surprise. They have believed too much in the old mind, and it betrayed
them.
"But the best of the intelligence will reach to heights unknown before. And if even
in a traditional world, a man like Gautam Buddha or Chuang Tzu or Pythagoras is possible, we can conceive that in the atmosphere
that the new mind will create, a thousandfold more awakened people, enlightened people will become easily possible.
"If the new mind can prevail then life can become an enlightening process. And enlightenment will not be something
rare, that it happens once in a while to somebody very special; it will become a very ordinary human experience, that only
once in a while some really idiotic person misses." Osho
