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Osho on Atisha Teachings
Osho -
These "Seven Points of Mind Training" of the great master
Atisha, are
fingers, seven fingers pointing to the moon. Don't be caught by the fingers,
don't become too much obsessed with the fingers. That is not the point, that
will be missing the point. Use the fingers and forget them, and look where
the fingers are pointing. And when you see the moon, who bothers about the
fingers? Who remembers them? They automatically become nonessential; they
disappear. That's why for those who have experienced religion, all the
scriptures become utterly useless, all methods become nonessential. When the
goal is achieved, the path is forgotten.
These seven points, the smallest treatise you can find, are of immense
value. You will have to meditate over each statement. They are the whole of
religion condensed: you will have to unfold each statement. They are like
seeds, they contain much. It may not be apparently so, but the moment you
move into the statements deeply, when you contemplate and meditate and start
experimenting with them, you will be surprised -- you will be going into the
greatest adventure of your life.
The first: First, Learn the preliminaries .
First, Learn the preliminaries.
What are the preliminaries? These are the preliminaries. First: truth is.
Truth is not something to be created, truth is not something that is far
away. Truth is herenow, truth surrounds you like the ocean surrounds the
fish. The fish may not be aware -- once the fish becomes aware of the ocean,
the fish is enlightened. The fish is not aware, cannot be aware, because the
fish is born in the ocean, has always lived in the ocean, is part of the
ocean as any wave is part of the ocean. The fish is also a wave -- a little
more solid, but born out of the ocean, lives in the ocean and one day
disappears in the ocean. The fish may never come to know about the ocean. To
know something, a little distance is needed. To know something, perspective
is needed. And the ocean is so close, that's why the fish may not be aware
of it.
And so is the case with truth, or if you like you can use the word god. So
is the case with god. It is not that he is far away, and that's why we don't
know about him; it is because he is not far away but very close by. Even to
say that it is close by is not right, because you are it. He is within you
and without: he is all and all.
This is the first thing that has to be allowed to sink deep in your heart:
truth already is, we are in it. This is the most fundamental thing to begin
with. You are not to discover it; it is not covered. All that is needed is a
new kind of awareness which is missing in you. Truth is there, but you are
not aware, you are not mindful, you are not alert. You don't know how to
watch, you don't know how to observe, you don't know how to look and see.
You have eyes but still you are blind, you have ears but you are deaf.
The first preliminary is: truth is.
The second preliminary is: mind is the barrier. Nothing else is
hindering you from truth, just your own mind. Mind surrounds you like a
film, like a movie that goes on and on, and you remain engrossed in it,
fascinated by it. It is a fantasy that surrounds you, a continuous story
that goes on and on. And because you are so fascinated by it, you go on
missing that which is. And mind is not; it is only a fantasy, it is only a
faculty for dreaming.
Mind is nothing but dreams and dreams -- dreams of the past, dreams of the
future, dreams of how things should be, dreams of great ambitions,
achievements. Dreams and desires, that is the stuff mind is made of. But it
surrounds you like a China Wall. And because of it the fish remains unaware
of the ocean.
So the second preliminary is: mind is the only barrier.
And the third: no-mind is the door. Atisha calls no-mind BODHICHITTA:
that is his word for no-mind. It can be translated as buddha-mind, buddha-consciousness,
too. Or if you like you can call it christ-consciousness, krishna-consciousness.
It doesn't make any difference what name is used, but the basic quality of
bodhichitta is that it is no-mind. It looks paradoxical: the mind in the
state of no-mind. But the meaning is very clear: mind without content, mind
without thoughts, is what is meant, is what is indicated.
Remember the word bodhichitta, because Atisha says the whole effort of
religion, the whole science of religion, is nothing but an endeavor to
create bodhichitta, buddha-consciousness: a mind which functions as a
no-mind, a mind which dreams no more, thinks no more, a mind which is just
awareness, pure awareness.
These are the preliminaries.
The second sutra:
Think that all phenomena are like Dreams.
Now the work starts. Atisha is very condensed, seedlike. That is the meaning
of a sutra: it is just a thread, just a hint, and then you have to decode
it.
Think that all Phenomena are dreams.
"Phenomena" means all that you see, all that you experience. All that can
ever be experienced is all phenomena. Remember, not only are the objects of
the world phenomena and dreams, but also objects of consciousness. They may
be objects of the world, they may be just objects of the mind. They may be
great spiritual experiences. You may see kundalini rising in you: that too
is a phenomenon -- a beautiful dream, a very sweet dream, but it is a dream
all the same. You may see great light flooding your being, but that light is
also a phenomenon. You may see lotuses blooming inside you and a great
fragrance arising within your being: those too are phenomena, because you
are always the seer and never the seen, always the experiencer and never the
experienced, always the witness and never the witnessed.
All that can be witnessed, seen, observed, is phenomena. Material phenomena,
psychological phenomena, spiritual phenomena -- they are all the same. There
is no need to make any distinction. The basic thing to remember is: that
which can be seen is a dream.
Think that all Phenomena are dreams.
This is a tremendously powerful technique. Start contemplating in this way:
if you are walking on the street, contemplate that people passing by are all
dreams. The shops and the shopkeepers and the customers and the people
coming and going, all are dreams. The houses, the buses, the train, the
airplane, all are dreams.
You will be immediately surprised by something of tremendous import
happening within you. The moment you think "All are dreams" suddenly, like a
flash, one thing comes into your vision: "I am a dream too." Because if the
seen is a dream, then who is this 'I'? If the object is a dream, then the
subject is also a dream. If the object is false, how can the subject be the
truth? Impossible.
If you watch everything as a dream, suddenly you will find something
slipping out of your being: the idea of the ego. This is the only way to
drop the ego, and the simplest. Just try it -- meditate this way. Meditating
this way again and again, one day the miracle happens: you look in, and the
ego is not found there.
The ego is a by-product, a by-product of the illusion that whatsoever you
are seeing is true. If you think that objects are true, then the ego can
exist; it is a by-product. If you think that objects are dreams, the ego
disappears. And if you think continuously that all is a dream, then one day,
in a dream in the night, you will be surprised: suddenly in the dream you
will remember that this is a dream too! And immediately, as the remembrance
happens, the dream will disappear. And for the first time you will
experience yourself deep asleep, yet awake -- a very paradoxical experience,
but of great benefit.
Once you have seen your dream disappearing because you have become aware of
the dream, your quality of consciousness will have a new flavor to it. The
next morning you will wake up with a totally different quality you had never
known before. You will wake up for the first time. Now you will know that
all those other mornings were false; you were not really awake. The dreams
continued -- the only difference was that in the night you were dreaming
with eyes closed, in the day you were dreaming with eyes open.
But if the dream has disappeared because awareness happened, suddenly you
became aware in the dream.... And remember, awareness and dreaming cannot
exist together. Here, awareness arises, and there, the dream disappears.
When you become awake in your sleep, the next morning is going to be
something so important that it is incomparable. Nothing like it has ever
happened. Your eyes will be so clear, so transparent, and everything will
look so psychedelic, so colorful, so alive. Even rocks will be felt to be
breathing, pulsating; even rocks will have a heartbeat. When you are awake,
the whole existence changes its quality. We are living in a dream. We are
asleep, even when we think we are awake.
Think that all Phenomena
are like dreams.
First, objects will lose their objectivity. And second, the subject will
lose its subjectivity. And that brings you to a transcendence. The object is
no longer important, the subject is no longer important, then what is left?
A transcendental consciousness: bodhichitta -- just a witnessing, with no
idea of 'I' and 'thou'; just a pure mirror which reflects that which is.
And God is nothing but that which is.
The third sutra:
Examine the nature of Unborn Awareness.
Now you know what awareness is. You have known this transcendental awareness
where objects and subjects are no more existential. You have known for the
first time this purity, this crystal-clear mirror. Now examine the nature of
this awareness. Look into it, look deep into it. Shake yourself into as full
alertness as possible.
Wake up and see! And you will start laughing -- because now you will see
there has never been a birth, and there is never going to be a death. This is
unborn and undying consciousness. It has always been here. It is eternal, it
is timeless. And how afraid you were of death, and how afraid you were of
old age, and how afraid you were of a thousand and one things! And nothing
has ever happened: all was a dream. Seeing this, one smiles, one laughs.
Your whole life up to now has been ridiculous, absurd. You were
unnecessarily afraid, unnecessarily greedy, unnecessarily suffering. You
were living in a nightmare and it was your own creation.
Examine the nature of Unborn Awareness.
And you are freed from all misery, all suffering, all hell.
Let even the remedy itself go free on its Own.
And now don't start clinging to the remedy, to the method. That temptation
arises. It is the last temptation, the very last effort of the mind to
survive. The mind comes from a back door, it tries once more. Before it
disappears forever, it makes one more effort, and that effort is to cling to
the method -- the method of thinking that all phenomena are dreams.
It has given you such joy, such a deep experience of reality, that naturally
you would like to cling to it. And once you cling you are back in the same
old rut again: the mind is back in disguise. Cling to anything and the mind
is back, because clinging is mind. Hold on to anything, depend on anything,
and the mind is back, because the mind is dependence, slavery. Possess
anything -- even a spiritual method, even a method of meditation -- become a
possessor, and you are possessed by it. Whether you possess money or you
possess a tremendously significant method of meditation, it doesn't matter.
Whatsoever you possess, you will be possessed by it and you will be afraid
to lose it.
Once a Sufi mystic was brought to me. For thirty years continuously
he had used the Sufi method ZIKR, and he had attained to great experiences.
One could see it; even ordinary people were aware that he was living in a
totally different world. You could see it in his eyes, they were shining
with joy. His very being had a vibe of the beyond.
His disciples brought him to me, and they said, "Our master is a realized
soul. What do you say about him?"
I said, "Leave your master with me for three days, and then come back."
The master stayed with me for three days. On the third day he was very
angry, and he said, "You have destroyed my thirty years' work!" Because I
told him a simple thing -- just this sutra of
Atisha: Let even the remedy itself go free on its Own....
I told him, "Now for thirty years you have been remembering one thing, that
all is divine. The tree is God, the rock is God, the people are God, the dog
is God, everything is God -- for thirty years you have been remembering it
continuously." And he had really made a sincere effort.
He said, "Yes."
I said, "Now stop remembering. How long are you going to remember? If it has
happened, then stop remembering and let us see what happens. If it has
really happened, then even after dropping remembering, it will remain."
It was so logical that he agreed.
He said, "It has happened."
I said, "Then give it a try. For three days you forget remembering, stop
remembering."
He said, "I cannot stop, it has become automatic."
I said, "You just wait and try."
It took him at least two days, forty-eight hours, to stop. It was hard to
stop, it had become automatic. There was now no need to remember; for thirty
years he had been remembering, it was simply there like an undercurrent. But
within forty-eight hours it stopped.
And on the morning of the third day he was very angry. He said, "What have
you done? All that joy has disappeared. I am feeling very ordinary, I am
feeling the same as I was before I started on the journey thirty years ago."
He started crying out of anger and out of sadness; tears started coming to
his eyes. He said, "Give me back my method -- please don't take it!"
I said, "Just look! If this is so dependent on the method, then nothing has
happened. It is just an illusion that you are creating by continuous
remembering. This is nothing but autohypnosis."
All the great masters say this, that one day you have to drop the method.
And the sooner you drop it, the better. The moment you attain, the moment
awareness is released in you, immediately drop the method.
Next Page....
(4th
sutra, Let even the remedy itself go...)
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