Chapter #27

[!info] Note

[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been copy-typed on to the computer. It is for reference purposes only.]

One can become wise very cheaply Just by acquiring knowledge. Then one only appears wise, one is not. One is not a man of wisdom. One may be a wise guy But to be a wise guy and to be a wise man Are totally different things.

The man who knows much Naturally starts dominating others Who don’t know so much. He becomes powerful in a way. The knowledgeable people, the scholars The professors – they are powerful people. They dominate because they have A large accumulation of information. But they are not wise. Their lives are as full of stupidities As anybody else’s. There is no difference of quality They differ in quantity Somebody knows less, somebody knows more. The difference is of quantity But there is no qualitative change.

The great professors, the great scholars behave As foolishly and childishly in their life As anybody else. You will not find any difference at all. Sometimes they are even more stupid because They have not learned anything from life. They have remained so enclosed within their books They have remained so surrounded By an abstract world of knowledge That they don’t have any acquaintance With reality itself. So when it comes to encountering reality They prove failures, utter failures Even about small things.

They are not very intelligent either They know only that which they know. If they have to face something new They are completely at a loss as to what to do. If it is something old for which they have Already acquired information They are very wise But if the situation is new The challenge is new They go completely empty Their mind stops working.O And life continuously changes It is never the same. It goes on bringing new challenges to you. It always proposes new questions And your answers are all old.

Hence the so-called knowledgeable people Are always lagging behind life. The more they know, the more burdened they are. They are carrying such a mountainous weight That they cannot dance with life They cannot move with life easily. Slowly slowly they become almost immovable They lose all movement, all dynamism. And that’s what death is. The knowledgeable person dies before his death. He dies in his books His books become his graveyard.

Real wisdom is not cheap, not so cheap. It is a question Of changing the quality of your consciousness Not a question Of acquiring more and more knowledge But of becoming more and more aware. This is a totally different gestalts To acquire more knowledge is To be concerned with the content. To become more aware is To be concerned with consciousness Not with the content.

It is possible that a man of wisdom May not be knowledgeable at all. Jesus was not very knowledgeable. Mohammed was not educated at all. He could not read, he could not write. He had no relationship with the world of books. Still, he became one of the wisest men on earth For the simple reason that He gained more and more awareness More and more meditativeness.

A sannyasin has to become concerned With the quality of life, not the quantity. How long you live is irrelevant How deeply you live should be the only concern With what intensity, with what totality With what awareness, with what love. And all these energies Are released by meditation. Meditation is certainly

The greatest magical force on the earth. It is the only bridge between this shore And the farther shore, the beyond.

So put all your energies into one efforts How to be more aware. And if one puts one’s total energies into awareness It is bound to happen – it is our birthright. But one should not be half-hearted. It can’t happen half-heartedly It happens only when You are one hundred per cent in it, into it When nothing is being held back, When you have put all your cards on the table The trump card included. When you are not hiding anything When you put yourself in totally It immediately happens.

And that happening is a great revolution. It transforms you from the lowest to the highest From the gross to the subtle From the visible to the invisible, It takes you from the mind to the no-mind. And to live in the no-mind is to be wise. To function out of no-mind Is to function out of wisdom. Then your life has a beauty, a grace, a godliness. Then whatsoever you do is right. It can’t be wrong It is impossible to do wrong because You are so full of light and so full of insight, Your vision is so clear and unclouded That it is impossible to do anything wrong. The right happens of its own accord. There is no need to cultivate any character. Just consciousness is enough. Character follows like a shadow.

Man without meditation is very tiny Just a very small particle of dust. But the same man with meditation is infinite The same man with meditation becomes oceanic. He becomes the whole.

We are small because we cling to the ego Our smallness is caused By our clinging to the ego. The ego is a very small phenomenon, and we Are such fools that we go on clinging to it Thinking it is something immensely valuable. It is the only barrier, it is the only cause Preventing our life from gaining Significance, grandeur, glory. It is a subtle wall surrounding you Which does not allow you to have a communion With the whole.

Once the ego is dropped, you start feeling one With the trees and the moon and the sun And the stars and the people. Suddenly all barriers disappear Suddenly you are no more a dewdrop Your boundaries are gone. You have become unbounded. And that’s the experience of god.

God is not a person whom you are going To encounter some day or meet some day. God is an experience – The experience of your dissolution Of your ego disappearing. And when your ego is no more there What is left? Just a pure vastness, an infinite nothingness is But that nothingness is not negative That nothingness is a new kind of fullness. It is nothingness from the side of the ego It is fullness from the side of the whole. It is nothingness from the old vision But it is a new birth, and a new vision is born And it is overflowing It is overflowing with power. And this power is eternal This power has no beginning, no end.

And once you know that you are one with it You have experienced something Of tremendous value. Nothing is higher thAn that More valuable than that. You are freed from all small identities You are no more a body and no more a mind. Once you drop the ego, all small boundaries Start disappearing of their own accord. Tremendous bliss is yours, great ecstasy is yours All that you have to lose is this ugly ego Which has not given you anything. And it cannot give you anything, It can only create trouble, misery, conflict.

The ego is the only hell. And to be free of the ego is to regain Paradise Is to regain innocence.

By becoming a sannyasin one is taking a step Towards this dissolution of the ego. I don’t ask you to renounce anything Except the ego. Just be a nobody, anonymous With no name, with no identity And all is yours, the whole is yours! Then there is no death. Once you have gathered the courage To drop yourself into the whole Naturally, there is no death possible: You have already gone Something new has taken place. Time is no more relevant.

The whole process of sannyas is to Slowly slowly help you to come out of the ego. The world need not be renounced. Nothing else has to be renounced, My sannyasin only has to renounce The ego and nothing else Because that is the problem, not the world. You can escape to the mountains But the ego will be with you. You can renounce your family But the ego will be with you, Even more than it was in the world.

Sitting alone in a mountain cave Your ego will have no competitors It will start flourishing, it will have more space. You will start thinking, ‘I am holy And the whole world is living in sin, Only I am going to heaven And all others are going to hell.’ You will start gaining more strength for the ego. That’s why the so-called religious people Are not egoless people. Your saints, your mahatmas are very egoistic For the simple reason that They have renounced the world They have renounced the comforts of the world – Which are absolutely irrelevant – And they have not renounced the real thing The real problem Which goes on, persists within them.

Be aware of it and consciously drop it. All is attained once the ego is gone. With the ego one is a beggar Without the ego one is an emperor.

[!info] Copyright 1964-1990 Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)