Chapter #22

awareness is the seed and blissfulness is the flower and the whole pilgrimage is between these two points awareness and blissfulness

we are living in unawareness hence bliss cannot blossom in awareness bliss, in unawareness misery there are the natural by-products everybody wants to be blissful

but just by wanting it you cannot attain it you will have to follow the right procedure you will have to follow the law of nature

one has to begin with awareness and then bliss comes of its own accord you need not worry about it you need not even desire it, it comes inevitably but the whole work consists of becoming more aware slowly slowly getting rid of unawareness unalertness, unconsciousness it is possible, it has happened to many people it can happen to everyone one just has to work a little one has to put a little energy into it it is almost ignored and when people try to get the flowers without sowing the seeds naturally they end up with plastic flowers and that is a very ugly and frustrating situation hence millions of people live a pseudo kind of life and when you live a pseudo kind of life you also die in a pseudo way you have never lived authentically you cannot die even authentically your whole life has been artificial, plastic, synthetic but once you start working on awareness you are on the right track

then go on moving deeper into it and one day suddenly, the blossoming suddenly one hears

the Sound of one hand Clapping

and the music of it is tremendous and the beauty of it is indescribable and the poetry of it is wordless but it overwhelms its fragrance starts spreading to others too whosoever is available and open will be able to feel it

the experience of bliss and the experience of light are simultaneous in fact they are not two separate things they are two sides of the same coin

the moment the flower of bliss opens in you suddenly you become aware of immense light surrounding it a light which needs no fuel and because it needs no fuel it is eternal it cannot be exhausted and to come to know the eternal life is another way of saying that one has realised god or one is liberated liberated from darkness liberated from the hell that darkness creates liberated from all the agony the anguish that is bound to be part of one’s darkness, unconsciousness, unawareness

one is not only liberated from darkness and its by-products one is also liberated from one’s own self, the ego the idea of i and it separate from existence liberation is not of the self liberation is from the self and the moment you are liberated from the self all the benediction of the whole existence is yours

the first thing is to grow towards bliss wisdom does not come by knowledge it comes through blissfulness it has nothing to do with the mind it has nothing to do even with the heart it has something to do with the innermost core of your being the centre of your existence

there are three concentric circles around your centre the first is body the body has its own kind of knowledge it is inbuilt, you are born with it it is already programmed in your very life cells you are not needed in it it goes on working on its own from the cradle to the grave it is a long journey, but the body goes on working it is doing a thousand and one things it is a miracle in such a small space the body is doing so much work that if we want to do all these things we would need a vast factory covering hundreds of acres and it is doing it so noiselessly you become aware only when you are ill when something goes wrong

otherwise everything goes smoothly that is the wisdom of the body, it is biological

then there is the mind, the second concentric circle it lives on borrowed knowledge the body lives with a natural, biological programme and the mind lives with social programming and that’s what the schools, colleges and universities are for: to programme your mind so that you can be servile to the society a good servant, a civil servant efficient, usable, a commodity, a machine then there is the third concentric circle of the heart it has its own way of knowing the poet, the musician, the painter, the dancer they live from that point; they don’t think logically hence they don’t use the mind they use feelings not thoughts they use love not logic hence the philosopher can never agree with the poet

one of the greatest greek philosophers, plato has visualised his utopia – he calls it the republic in the republic he does not debar thieves prostitutes, gamblers, drunkards – no but he debars only one kind of people, the poets the poets will not be allowed to live in his republic for the simple reason that they are illogical people

he cannot trust love he trusts logic, calculation, mathematics

these are the three places where people are hanging somewhere a few live in the body and follow its programme they are almost like animals a few live in the mind they follow the social programme they are prisoners of the society a particular society in which they are born a few live in the heart they are better than the first two but they are also dominated by something they don’t know what it is they are possessed people they do things but it is very unconscious even sometimes they rise to very beautiful heights but the whole rise is unconscious hence they have to fall again and again the poet only once in a while has a glimpse and then again he is back into his dark night of the soul

the real wisdom happens only when you have transcended all three and you have entered your innermost shrine it is absolute silence it is non-physical it is non-mental

it is beyond the heart it is not action, not thought, not feeling it is just pure silence, virgin silence and with this virgin silence both things explode first blissfulness and following it comes wisdom a great insight into things a tremendous perception into the mystery of existence that is revelation, revelation of the divine of the godly, of the ultimate

a man without bliss is a tree without flowers a sky without stars a man without bliss lives somehow carrying a great load of meaningless things he drags, he cannot dance; he has nothing to dance he has not experienced any splendour any joy, any meaning

only the person who comes to know bliss comes to know the splendour the immense splendour of existence then life is lived as a dance, then there is beauty then one is not an outsider, one becomes an insider a partner in the great play of existence then one is part of the flowers and the clouds

and the mountains and the stars then one is not alienated but this can happen only through blissfulness and bliss happens through meditation

this is the whole science

meditation means silence and silence brings bliss

and bliss releases the hidden splendour in you and the moment you have seen your splendour you become capable of seeing the splendour of the whole then life is a sheer celebration each moment of it is an eternity of joy

failure comes or success, it makes no difference neither does failure bring misery nor does success bring any excitement one remains calm and cool one can see the enemy and the friend in the same way because one knows that the enemy can become the friend the friend can become the enemy they are convertible in fact the man who is enemy was a friend one day there is no way to make an enemy

without making a friend first and if a friend can become an enemy the enemy can become a friend so they are not so separate as people think

all dualities are complementaries they are not opposites love and hate are not contraries they belong to the same energy two extremes of the same energy, like hot and cold but measurable by the same thermometer that thermometer shows they are one energy it can measure both

blissfulness brings this insight this tranquillity, this equilibrium, this vision that there is nothing contradictory in existence that there are no opposites hence there is no need to be anxious, worried life and death mean the same

and the moment life and death are the same your cool becomes undisturbed nothing can distract, nothing can disturb but this immense possibility opens up only with blissfulness, never before it a miserable person cannot think there is no question of seeing he cannot even think, he cannot even conceptualise that misery and bliss belong to the same spectrum

it is impossible for him to think he only knows the bitter taste of misery he has not known bliss at all it is only by knowing the bliss that you suddenly realise that it is the same energy that was being felt as misery it is not a different energy then what has made it possible to become bliss? there has been a bridge and that bridge i call meditation

meditation is the alchemy of transforming the baser metal into gold

scientists say that the ingredients of a coal piece are the same as the ingredients of a diamond they are not chemically different any piece of coal under a certain heat pressure will become diamond just that heat pressure is needed that’s why now there are false diamonds available the only way to judge a false diamond from the real diamond is in a very strange way the only way is: the false diamond has no flaws while the real diamond has a few flaws man has improved upon nature

the same is true about misery and bliss about hate and love about birth and death it is the same energy it just has to pass through the alchemy of meditation it has to pass through silence and silence functions as fire it burns all that is ugly, unnecessary and out comes the purest gold that purest gold can only be described as absolute coolness – that is the flavour of sannyas

the essential core of the existence is bliss existence is made of the stuff called bliss if we are not blissful the simple reason is we have forgotten the way to our own essential core just forgotten – it is there and we are searching everywhere, except within meditation changes this course meditation means a one-hundred-and-eighty degree turn from without to within and the moment you face yourself you start laughing laughing at the whole ridiculousness of your search you were searching for something that was already within you and the moment you know your own inner core and its blissfulness the whole existence becomes blissful instantly

it looks miserable because you are miserable it simply reflects you, it is a mirror, it echoes you if you are blissful the whole existence is blissful

then all the trees join in dance with you and all the birds join in songs with you all the rainbows have your colours then the stars are not without, they are within too then the distinction between without and within disappears there comes a melting one becomes an intrinsic part of the whole that is the ultimate goal

gautam the buddha has said that the taste of bliss is the taste of the purest sweetness

misery is bitter, very bitter because it is part of your unconscious life it is as if a blind man is trying to find a way he stumbles, hurts himself breaks his leg or gets a fracture again starts groping hits his head against a wall and there is no one to ask because all others are blind too they are constantly running into each other hitting each other a few cunning ones start becoming political leaders gathering blind people giving them beautiful names giving them a flag and a slogan and then gangs fight – gangs of blind people christians, hindus, mohammedans or communists, fascists, socialists it may be politics or religion but the crowd consists of blind people and the leaders are far more blind than the followers only then can they lead they are more perfectly blind just think of the polack pope or ayatollah khomaniac now he has brought the islamic revolution to iran thousands of people have been killed the whole country is being destroyed because of this maniac he is not only blind but mad too but that is perfection ayatollah khomaniac is a perfect man blindness plus madness is a rare combination once in a while it creates an adolf hitler, a mussolini joseph stalin, mao tse tung – monsters not men

in darkness, in blindness, nothing else is possible one has to attain to a little awareness awareness gives you insight, vision and the moment you have awareness you start tasting bliss and its sweetness life becomes a totally different phenomenon luminous, fragrant

bliss is the everest there is nothing higher than that and unless you reach the everest of bliss you have not fulfilled your mission in life your destiny in life hence one feels always as if something is missing one cannot pinpoint exactly what it is because how to pinpoint? you have never known it but you can see the gap you can see something empty inside you something is certainly missing you are not whole – that much is certain and that which is missing keeps you in agony in despair, in depression, in a pessimistic attitude because you are unfulfilled because you have not blossomed you are missing your opportunity in life and death is coming closer every day so as death comes closer one becomes more and more miserable

don’t be angry at old men: feel compassion for them because they have missed their life and that’s why they are continuously irritated for small things they throw a tantrum the basic reason is something else they find any excuse they go on trying to find faults with everybody the real thing is they know they have missed

and even to recognise it is too painful, so they go on finding other excuses for their being miserable but the real thing is they are miserable because they could have been blissful but they never travelled to the peak, to the everest which was always possible just a decisiveness was needed

sannyas is a decision, a commitment not to me but to yourself that from now onwards you will put more and more energy towards becoming aware, blissful, silent because that is the only way you will be able to reach to the goal of your life and when it is reached suddenly the whole jigsaw puzzle of life disappears all fits so perfectly that one starts dancing one has arrived home

bliss is a strange wine strange, because on the one hand it makes you fully aware and on the other hand it makes you fully intoxicated intoxicated with the divine fully aware in your being but the moment you are fully aware in your being

the divine wine starts showering on you and it is one of the most miraculous events when awareness becomes intoxicated it still remains aware that is the mystery in it it is absolute intoxication and absolute awareness and both are together, both are one hence the word mystic

the mystic is called a mystic because he lives the greatest mystery of life incalculable, immeasurable incomprehensible through the mind but mind is not all mind is the most superficial thing it is good for the marketplace the marketplace is not a mystery it is good for mathematical calculations it is a good biocomputer but it knows nothing of the mystery it cannot know by its very nature hence one has to drop out of the mind and to drop out of the mind is the only way to drop out of the stupidity of society by dropping out of the society you cannot drop out of the mind but by dropping out of the mind you naturally drop out of the society and all the great people of the world are drop-outs jesus, socrates, lao tzu, zarathustra, buddha

all are drop-outs but not drop-outs like hippies, real drop-outs dropping out of the mind is only the superficial part of their dropping then they drop in dropping out is only the first step then they drop in and that dropping in brings bliss and bliss brings the mysterious, the miraculous awareness and intoxication both together

blissfulness is our birthright we just have to claim it and meditation is our claim

meditation is simply preparing your home for the guest the guest is already waiting on the door but your inner side is so cluttered that there is no space for the guest to come in and the guest is no ordinary guest it is the whole infinity all the stars and the whole sky and the infinite universe is waiting as a guest to come in so you will need immense space you will need bigger space than the whole universe only then the universe can be accommodated

and meditation does that magic it throws out all rubbish, all junk and in fact it is all junk, it has no value at all it has not given you anything, it has been destructive it has been simply occupying the space for no reason at all and because it is occupying the space nothing else can come in

the cup has to be emptied, totally emptied meditation is the process of emptying yourself slowly slowly throwing thoughts desires, memories, fantasies, out then feelings, moods the moment you are totally a zero that very moment the guest comes in without even knocking on the door without even declaring that i am here may i come in – that much time is not lost once you are empty here you are empty and there the guest appears and that guest is blissfulness

so we have to prepare only one thing an empty mind, a no-mind that’s what i call meditation: a no-mind and the no-mind is the purest state of our being it is virgin consciousness and only in a virgin consciousness is god possible

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