PHILOSOPHIA ULTIMA Talks On The Mandukya Upanishad

 

Nothing is insignificant, nothing is smaller than anything else.

The universe is a totality; it is an organic whole. The seers of the Upanishads say: “The consciousness within you and the existence outside of you are not separate; it is all one.” “Om, purnam adah, purnam idam;” that is the whole, this is the whole. This book is the transcribed version of Osho’s talks on the Mandukya Upanishad.

The Upanishads are not knowledgeable; they simply tell the experience of the seers. Osho says that the Mandukya Upanishad is not an ordinary philosophy concerned with the mundane, it describes the innermost core and the ultimate reach of human consciousness; it reveals the secrets of the ultimate.

The Mandukya says: “The pure self has four quarters..” The first is the waking state, jagrati; the second, swapna, the dreaming state; the third, sushupti, deep sleep, the dreamless state and beyond the third is the enlightened state, turiya, which only means the fourth. The Mandukya Upanishad talks about the fourth, turiya.

The Mandukya says: “The pure self and om are as one; and the different quarters of the self correspond to om and its sounds, a-u-m.” 

All the Upanishads begin with om which is the primordial sound, the unstruck sound that the whole universe consists of. It is a code word which consists of three sounds and the fourth, the soundless sound which is only the harmony of those sounds. The fourth is represented by a dot and that dot is called anusvara. Out of that dot arise three sounds a-u-m. These four represent the whole of existence; these four are the four dimensions of existence.

The first sound, a, represents the waking state; the second sound, u, is the dreaming state and “the state of dreamless sleep corresponds to m, the third sound.” The first can be called, according to modern psychology, consciousness; the second, subconsciousness; and the third, unconsciousness. The first is in the future, the second is in the past, the third is in the present but unconscious, the fourth is in the present and consciously in the present. The fourth is the state of a Buddha, of a Christ, of a Krishna. This is the ultimate philosophy, the method, the technique, the device, to reach the fourth.

The book consists of 16 chapters of which the Upanishadic sutras are explained in chapters 1, 5, 9 and 13 and Osho’s replies to questions on diverse topics from disciples and seekers appear in the remaining chapters. Given below are some of Osho’s observations:

Life can have only one meaning and that is creativity.

Everything grows in darkness, underground, hidden; nobody can see it, nobody even knows what is growing underneath the ground.

We talk about democracy, but our whole way, our very pattern of life is dictatorial, it is non-democratic, it is really antidemocratic.

The whole idea of religion is rooted in the concept of the family.

Jokes, parables and anecdotes are an integral part of Osho’s talks. Shared here are a few of his jokes:

A man went to visit a madhouse and started talking with a madman. “You seem sane enough to me, why are you here?” he asked.

“Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I like children.”

“What’s wrong with that? I like children too.”

“Really? Fried or boiled?”

                                                               *

They drove toward the city in zigzag pattern. “Shamus, ish we near Dublin yet?”

“Yesh, we’re knocking down more people so we mush be!”

“Drive slower then!”

“Whaddaya mean, drive slower? You are driving!”

                                                              *

A man had murdered his wife. The judge asked him, “Are you aware of what you have done?”

The man said, “I am a very peace-loving person.”

The judge said, “What do you mean by ‘peace-loving’? You killed your wife and you think you are a peace-loving person?”

He said, “Since I have killed her there has been so much peace in the house!”

                                                              *

One woman was asking another, “Do you believe in the liberation of women?”

The other woman said, “Yes, I do.” 

The first looked puzzled and said, “Then why are you getting married?”

The woman said, “But before I can be liberated I have to be trapped! Otherwise how can I be liberated?”

WALKING IN ZEN SITTING IN ZEN

                               

Religion is not a desire for God, it is an experience of godliness.

Zen is another name for meditation; it is the meeting of Buddha’s and Lao Tzu’s experiences. According to Osho “ Zen is neither Taoist nor Buddhist; it is both and neither.” Osho’s responses to questions from his disciples are transcribed in this book. He often quotes Yoka, a great Zen master, while responding to questions and his answers are mostly centered around Zen and Yoka. The title of this book itself is derived from a Yoka quote, “A man of Zen walks in Zen and sits in Zen.”

Zen says: “This is all. There is no other life, there is no other existence.” It says that there is nothing; no God, no soul, no paradise. Not even nothingness is there; so one has to get rid of nothingness too.

The man of zen ,Yoka says, is absolutely conscious - no greed, no anger, no jealousy, no ambition. He goes alone; he walks consciously, sits consciously: walking in Zen, sitting in Zen.

Osho responds to a number of questions on diverse topics with great insight and clarity. “Life,” Osho says, “is not a problem to be solved and it cannot be reduced to questions; it is a mystery, unanswerable, insoluble.”

Jokes, parables and anecdotes are an integral part of Osho’s talks. Shared here are two of his jokes: 

Skolnik, the Scardale skinflint, awoke one morning to find that during the night his wife had died. After one glance at the stark form lying there beside him, he leaped out of bed and ran into the hall. 

“Daisy,” he called down to the maid in the kitchen. “Come to the foot of the stairs, quick!”

“Yes,” she cried. “What is it?”

“Only one egg for breakfast this morning!”                                                                             

                                                     *                                                

Last one night, Manuel, staggering home drunk, passed through a cemetery, stumbled and fell on the ground.

Just in front of his nose he saw a hand sticking out of a grave and a voice cried, “Help me!” Help me! Let me out - I’m alive!”

The portugese shakily covering the hand with earth, replied, “No, you’re not alive - just badly buried.”

Some of Osho’s observations:

 Knowledge destroys wonder, destroys the capacity to feel awe.

 There is only one freedom: the freedom from all goals.

 A non-ambitious man never feels frustrated.

 If soldiers are allowed to be intelligent, wars will disappear from the earth. 

You get married from lack of judgment; get divorced from lack of patience; you remarry for lack of memory.

 Tail piece:

“I had a funny dream last night, Mum.” 

“Did you?”

“I dreamed I was awake, but when I woke up I found I was asleep!”

THE HEARTBEAT OF THE ABSOLUTE Talks on the Ishavasya Upanishad

Truth is hidden in light; where there is truth, there will surely be only light.

“We live under a great illusion in life - as if many things are ours - but in fact nothing is ours,” says Ishavasya Upanishad. All feelings and emotions in life come from some unknown shore, hunger arises, sleep comes; in the morning waking comes, and in the evening eyes began to close again. Childhood comes and passes away, youth comes and passes away, then old age comes along. “There is nothing in this world of which you can claim to be the doer.” Everything belongs to existence, to the whole. That is why it is called Ishavasya, because everything ....is permeated by godliness. This book is the English translation of Osho’s commentary on Ishavasya Upanishad, a seven days’ talks in Hindi language given by Osho to a live audience at a meditation camp.

The upanishads divide man into two categories as “the killers of the self” and “the knowers of the self.” The Upanishad calls the person who goes on living in ignorance, without even knowing himself, a killer of the self and the person “a man of knowledge” who knows one’s own self. Because someone who knows his own self knows everything, knows the whole. When someone knows himself, he becomes a mirror, and when that happens everything is reflected in him. This Upanishad is telling us to be a mirror.

The sage of the Ishavasya Upanishad says that those who tread on the path of ignorance certainly wander in darkness; but those who walk on the path of knowledge wander in even deeper darkness. In Osho’s words “ awareness of ignorance leads one to knowing, but the accumulation of knowledge leads one into great darkness.”

The Upanishads declare that immortality will be attained through vidya, true knowledge i.e. ‘knowledge of the self’ which is not merely knowledge, but knowledge that transforms one’s life in the same instant it is known. Avidya means material knowledge, “knowledge of the other”. 

Ishavasya Upanishad both begins and ends with this sutra: “That is the whole, this is the whole;/ the whole arises out of the whole,/the whole derives from the whole,/yet the whole remains whole./Om peace, peace, peace.” The sage of this sutra says that each and every single individual, each and every atom is not a part of the whole, it is the entire whole. According to Osho everything is contained in this sutra just like everything is contained within the sky, and the sky is not contained within anything else. 

This book consists of 13 chapters in 330 pages. The missing part in this translation is the uniqueness of Osho’s language . some of Osho’s observations are given below:

Nobody but the stupid has ever claimed to be wise.

The ignorant will destroy the happiness of meeting, and the wise will destroy the pain of separation.

We postpone a good action, but the bad one we do immediately.

Someone from whom you attain an awareness of your ignorance is the master, not the one from whom you receive knowledge.

Tail-piece:

Diogenes went to the academy where Plato was teaching. At that moment a student got up and asked Plato to define ‘man.’ Plato said, “Man is a two-legged animal without feathers.” Standing behind the teacher, Diogenes was listening, and he laughed loudly when he heard this definition. He then went out, caught a cock, and plucked all its feathers and brought the cock into the class and said, “Here is your definition of man. It has no feathers and has two legs.”

SEX MATTERS : FROM SEX TO SUPERCONSCIOUSNESS

                                  In love one always rises, never falls. 

This book contains excerpts from Osho’s talks, including several originally published under the title ‘From Sex to Superconsciousness’. Human sex, Osho says, can become a door to superconsciousness. “This strong and recurring pull toward sex is for the momentary experience of a state of samadhi, no-mind, for the superconsciousness it brings.

” Osho sees sex as the starting point of all journeys to love. All life, all expression, all flowering, he believes, is nothing but sex energy transformed. Osho says, “All our songs, all our poetry, all our art and paintings, all our temples and the statues in them have directly or indirectly become centered around sex.” According to him sex is godly and the energy of sex is divine energy. It is the greatest and most mysterious force of all and that is why this energy creates new life.

Love, says Osho, is the experience of oneness, the experience when the walls between two people have crumbled down and their beings have met, united, and become one and when this same experience happens between an individual and the whole, that experience is godliness.

According to Osho there are two ways to reach to one’s consciousness, one, sex and the other meditation. At the root of meditation there is the experience of lovemaking. Sex is the way provided by nature. “So long as we make use only of nature’s way, Osho says, we are not above the animals. Until we rise above this, until we transcend this, we live the way animals do. The animal in man is always anxious to be let loose.”

Some of Osho’s observations: 

The ego only understands the language of taking; love is the language of giving.

The energy that becomes ambition is repressed sex.

Man has done everything to hide the fact that he is an animal.

People who can love beautifully and have the joy of life will not be competitive.

Sex has become an obsession, a disease, a wound. Osho says that, what happened to the holy man in the following story has happened to the whole of humanity as far as sex is concerned.

One day a so-called holy man was leaving his house to see some of his friends - when, at the gate, he met a childhood friend who had come to see him. The holy man welcomed the friend and said that he had promised to visit some friends and it would be difficult to postpone it. So he asked his friend to take rest in his house till he returned. The friend then replied “my clothes were very dirty...” “but if you can just give me something fresh, I will change and come along with you.”

Sometime earlier, a rich man had given the holy man some valuable clothes, and he had been saving them for some grand occasion. Joyfully, he brought them out. His friend put on the precious coat, the turban, the beautiful shoes. He looked like a king! Looking at his friend, the holy man felt a bit jealous; in comparison he looked like a servant and he began to feel inferior.

n the surface he tried to converse with his friend on other topics, but inwardly his mind hovered around the coat and the turban. On the way, although they were walking together, passersby only looked at his friend, not at him. He began to feel depressed.

They reached the house that they were intending to visit and he introduced his friend: “This is my friend Jamaal, a childhood friend. He is a very lovely man.” and suddenly he blurted, “And the clothes? They are mine!”

The friend was stunned. Their hosts were also astonished. The holy man also realized that the remark had been uncalled for, but by then it was too late. He regretted his blunder and because of it, he repressed his mind even more.

Coming out of the house, he apologized to his friend. The friend said, “I was dumbfounded. How could you say something like that?” The holy man said, “Forgive me. This really was a mistake. How such a thing came out of my mouth, I do not know.”

They started for another friend’s house. As they arrived at the gate of the other friend’s house he made a firm resolution that he would not say that the clothes were his. Thus occupied in an inner struggle, the holy man went into the house. He began introducing his friend very carefully, “This is my friend. A childhood friend. A very fine gentleman. And the clothes...those are his not mine.”

The people were amazed. They had never before heard such an introduction. “The clothes are his not mine!” 

As they left the house, he again apologized profusely. “A big blunder,” he admitted. The friend, now quite indignant, said he would not go any farther with him. The holy man grabbed his arm and begged, “Please don’t do that. I swear not to mention the clothes again. With my whole heart, I swear to god I will not mention the clothes anymore.” 

They went to a third friend’s house. Slowly and carefully he spoke each and every word of his introduction: “Meet my friend. He is a very old friend, a very nice man he is...” For a moment he faltered. He blurted out, “And the clothes? Pardon me, I won’t talk about them, because I have sworn not to!”

Tailpiece:

A sign on the door said “Don’t spit on the floor,” So he carefully spat on the ceiling.

COME FOLLOW TO YOU (Vol 4) - On the Sayings of Jesus

          Rise above law, go beyond it; reach to the heights of love.

And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying: “This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.” It is the last supper with Jesus and only Jesus knows it is the last. They were silent and in silence they must have eaten and drunk. The bread became Jesus, the wine became his blood. Osho’s talks on the sayings of Jesus in the backdrop of selected versus from the gospels of John, Mathew and Luke (John Ch:13 Mathew Ch:26,27 and Luke Ch:22, 24 ) are transcribed in this last of four volumes.

On that last day of Jesus with his disciples, Jesus washed and touched his disciples’ feet with deep reverence. Jesus touched the feet of the disciples to show them that nothing is lowly. By touching the feet of his disciples, he is saying that the disciple is the master and the master is the disciple. Without saying anything, he is saying the very essence of all religions that “I and thou are not two.”

The governor asked Jesus: “Art thou the king of the Jews?” And Jesus said unto him: “Thou sayest.” “I am not saying,” he said. “I have not said it. It is you who are saying it.” Jesus was misunderstood whenever he talked about the kingdom of God; he never talked about the kingdom of this earth. Osho says that when you are near a man like Jesus, listen to his silence and not to his words.

On the cross Jesus cries, prays and almost shouts at God. “What are you doing to me? Have you forgotten me? Why this much suffering to me? And immediately he says, “But let thy will be done, not mine.”

Jesus’ message was very simple , straight: follow love and forget everything. Make love your only, and the only commandment. If you follow love, everything will be set right of its own accord.

Jesus goes on saying, “I and my father who is in heaven, are one.” This is the meaning of the Upanishadic saying: Aham brahmasmi - “I am the whole.” This is the meaning of el-Hillaj Mansoor who said: Ana’l haq - “I am the truth.” 

Osho’s responses to questions from seekers and disciples are compiled in alternate chapters. Following are some of his observations:

If you have eyes to see, you will find God everywhere, good everywhere: scriptures in silence and sermons in stones. 

We only see that which we want to see, we only see that which we are expecting to see.

Love always creates fear because love is death, a greater death than the ordinary death you know of. 

When you read a book, you never read the book that the author has written.

Osho tells a number of jokes and stories during the course of his talks. Here he reminds us of an old and very famous story from Bhagawat purana:

A crow was flying with a piece of meat in its beak. Twenty crows were pressing it, pursuing it, fighting with it, trying to grab the meat. Flying high to escape them, it became tired, wounded. Suddenly, it dropped the meat, and the twenty crows flew down shrieking, fighting for it. Then the crow, flying high, thought, “How good it is to carry nothing; the whole sky belongs to me.”

COME FOLLOW TO YOU (Vol 3) - On the Sayings of Jesus

            Do unto others what you would like to be done to you.

Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?” and Jesus remained silent, because silence is truth and truth is silence. But the governor-general could not understand it and Jesus got into trouble by not answering. Jesus gave his life for us; he gave it for the message and he gave it for the mission for which he was sent“...for I am from him, and he hath sent me.” Osho’s talks on the sayings of Jesus in the backdrop of selected versus from the gospels of Mathew and John ( Mathew Ch:13,14,16,21, 22 and John Ch:7 ) are transcribed in this third volume. 

The disciples asked :  “Master, which is the great commandment in the law? ” Jesus said unto them,  "Love thy God with all thy heart, all thy mind, and all thy soul. This is the first and great commandment.” And the second is, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” Jesus brings love to the world. He destroys law, the very basis of the society and that was his crime; that’s why he was crucified. In Osho’s words, “ he was destroying the whole basis of this criminal society; he was destroying the whole foundation rock of this criminal world, the world of wars, and violence, and aggression.”

The scriptures say, “When Jesus comes nobody will know from where he comes.” Those people of Jerusalem knew all, but “...when Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence he is.” Jews rejected Christ because they thought he didn’t follow all the predictions of the old prophets.

On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying: “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.” Osho says, “Jesus is water of eternity, a divine well. He can quench your thirst. But people are not aware even of their thirst. They have forgotten their thirst; they have suppressed it.”

Osho’s responses to questions from seekers and disciples are compiled in alternate chapters. Following are some of his observations:

No other religion has created as many wars as Christianity, and all its preaching is about love. Nobody else has created as many wars as Islam, and the very word Islam means peace.

Perfectionism is a neurosis; it is an illness. And the more you try to become perfect, the more frustrated you will become.

Whatsoever you do, you can always imagine that it could have been better. 

Only the false needs certificates; the real is self-evident.

Osho says that there always exists a third possibility in solving a problem and here he reminds us of an old story:

A merchant, very old man, was in heavy debt, and the moneylender was a very dangerous man. The money lender came to the merchant’s house. The merchant was sitting outside in his small garden. Where he was sitting the garden was paved with white and black pebbles.

His young and beautiful daughter was also sitting by his side. The money lender had come to threaten that if the man was not going to pay the money within a certain limit of time, he would be thrown into prison for at least twenty years. But he softened a little on looking at the beautiful girl. He proposed. He said, “I know that you cannot pay your debts, and I know that legally you can be thrown into prison for at least twenty years. You are almost seventy: that will be the end of your life. But I am kind and I have always been kind to you. I will give you an opportunity, and this is my proposal: I will take two pebbles, one black and one white, and put them in my bag, and then your daughter has to take one pebble from my bag. If she takes the white pebble out, you are freed of your debt, and nothing happens to your daughter. If she takes the black pebble out, then you are freed of your debt, but your daughter will have to marry me.”

Very reluctantly the father and daughter agreed, because there was no other possibility. The moneylender took two pebbles. When he was taking the two pebbles, the old merchant could not see, he was almost filled with tears, but the sharp eyes of the young girl could see that he had taken two black pebbles.

What did the girl do? She didn’t expose him; she didn’t argue about the fact that he had taken two black pebbles. She withdrew one pebble out of the bag, fumbled, dropped the pebble on the path - it was lost. There were many pebbles and it could not be recognized. Profusely, she wanted to be excused, forgiven. And then she suggested a solution: “Look at the other pebble that is left inside. If it is black, then the one that I withdrew must have been white. If it is white, then the other was black.” and the old moneylender could not do anything. The failure was absolute.

COME FOLLOW TO YOU (Vol 2) - On the Sayings of Jesus

 

When Jesus is there, people kill him and when he is gone, they worship him. 

Jesus disappeared that day in the River Jordan when John the Baptist initiated him into a totally different life. Jesus says and preaches whatsoever he lives. He speaks in the language of the farmers, the fishers and the carpenters. He says to his disciples, “Moses gave you the law, I give you love. Moses brought you the law, and I bring you a higher law of grace.” Jesus’ whole effort is to tell people to accept themselves and not feel guilty and condemned. Osho’s talks on Jesus in the backdrop of selected verses from the gospels of Mathew and Luke (Mathew Ch: 9, 12, 13 and Luke Ch: 10, 14 and 18) are transcribed in this volume.

Jesus says, “Ask, and it shall be given. Knock, and the doors shall be opened unto you.” “ But because of your ego”, Osho says, “you have not even knocked; because of your ego, you have not even asked. ” 

One of the most popular sayings of Jesus is that “ it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” Jesus is talking about that man who is possessive and miserly, who is closed and unwilling to share.

Osho says, “When Jesus talks to you, he is not giving you flowers, he is giving you seeds.” Jesus’ whole life is nothing but a showering of good seeds all around. The gospel says: “He that soweth the good seed is the son of man...” Jesus uses “son of man” for himself more than he ever uses “son of God.” 

The charge against Jesus was that he was trying to change the society by corrupting people and creating chaos. According to Osho Jesus was actually trying to change the individual and not the society as was charged by the priests.

When Jesus was crucified, only three women came near him. Osho sees it as symbolic - that only the heart can come near in such moments. Three poor women, Mother Mary, Mary Magdalene and Martha, one of them a prostitute, came to take possession of the body and they brought the body of Jesus down from the cross.

 Jesus on the cross, according to Osho, is a symbol that the ego has to be crucified. On the cross when Jesus died, he was resurrected on the third day. After resurrection he became the son of God; before that he was the son of man. 

Osho says: “ you can crucify the body of a Jesus, but you can never crucify his spirit.”

Osho’s responses to questions from seekers and disciples are compiled in alternate chapters. Following are some of his observations:

There is much difference between a Mahatma Gandhi and Adolf Hitler, but deep down no difference at all, because both have ideas of changing the world according to them.

If you want to love human beings you have to stop loving the country, you have to stop loving the religion, you have to stop loving your colour. If you really want to love human beings you have to stop all political nonsense.

Life is God, love is God. Remember this much, and don’t be worried about knowledge.

Only fools are certain; wise people are always hesitant.