You have opened me to new heights and I hear you ahead of time. I see that you are here and I feel that it is only your body that is present.
When you speak of Jesus, you are he. When you speak of Buddha, you are he. When you speak of Mahavira, you are he. I see that you are all masters.
And when you spoke of time that does not move, I heard and saw. My heart is full.
Jivan Mary, there are heights beyond heights. Don’t be contented: The spiritual search is an eternal discontentment, but it is sweet. The more discontented you are for new heights, more heights, the more fulfilled, the more fruitful and significant becomes your every breath.
I can only show you the way, but you have to walk on it, alone – singing and dancing and always remembering that there is no place where you have to stop forever. It is good to have an overnight stop and wait for the beautiful dawn, and open your wings, because new heights are waiting for you.
The pilgrimage is endless.
This is one of the most fundamental things to understand – because all the religions have been teaching that there is a full stop; there comes a moment when you have reached and there is nowhere to go anymore. Life knows no full stop, it goes on and on. The full stop is only for those who are not courageous. Then just a little joy, a little light, a little song, suffices them.
I would like my people never to be satisfied. To be unsatisfied about worldly things is meaningless – with the worldly things you can be satisfied – but to be satisfied with spiritual growth is committing suicide. Contentment with the world and discontentment for God is the way.
It is true – if your heart is beating with my heart you will hear me ahead of time because whatever I am saying is nothing new: it is only dormant in you, asleep in you. When your heart is dancing with me, that which is asleep in you becomes awake. And the quality of awakening is the same, so you can hear me ahead of time. That is a very significant indication of coming closer and closer to the state of a devotee.
You say, “I see that you are here and then I feel that it is only your body present. When you speak of Jesus, you are he; when you speak of Buddha, you are he; when you speak of Mahavira, you are he; I see that you are all masters.”
Every master is all masters, because the message is the same. Every master is only a vehicle, a passage, but what comes through that passage belongs to existence itself. It cannot be otherwise.
The language is going to be different, the ways of expression are going to be different, but the essential core of the message is eternally the same.
It is because I feel such a deep affinity with Buddha, Mahavira, Jesus, Zarathustra, Bodhidharma, Moses, that I feel an absolute right even to criticize them. That is out of my love.
People misunderstand: they think I have criticized Jesus, I have simply corrected him. Jesus is two thousand years old. In two thousand years the very style of life has changed; the concepts, the words, the approach to reality has changed. Although the fingers are pointing to the same moon, the fingers are different. And my love for Jesus or Buddha is so great that I don’t feel any difficulty in criticizing them – just like a friend can criticize you, not a stranger.
A Christian is afraid to criticize Jesus because he is a stranger, he is not a friend. He does not know that love is capable of criticizing one he loves. In fact, the more he loves, the more he is capable of criticizing.
It is true that you have heard through my voice all the masters of the past and all the masters of the future too, because whatsoever superficial changes happen make no difference to the fundamental religiousness, it remains the same. But to have understood it is certainly a great opening, the opening of the heart, a great understanding, a great light in the house that has been dark up to now.
And you say, “And when you spoke of time that does not move, I heard and saw. My heart is full.”
Whenever the heart is full, everything stops: time, mind, everything comes to a stop, just like a lake which is so silent that there are no ripples anymore. It becomes almost like a mirror; and in the fullness of your heart you are also a mirror. You will be able to see the whole sky reflected in the mirror.
Rabindranath recalled a man who was of the age of his grandfather – very old. He used to come often to Rabindranath’s house, and Rabindranath never felt at ease with the man because he would always ask strange questions. If you are asked those strange questions, either you have to answer them and you know you are wrong, or you have to remain silent, which feels very embarrassing.
And that old man used to laugh whether he answered or not; it did not matter. He used to say to Rabindranath, “Your answer is wrong, your no-answer is wrong. You are known to be a great poet, you are a Nobel prize-winner – and you don’t know anything at all. You have written so many beautiful poems about God: Have you met him? Have you seen him?” And the man and his eyes were so penetrating that it was very difficult to deceive him.
One day Rabindranath had gone to the ocean, which was close by. In the full moon night, he saw in the ocean the reflection of the moon. The reflection was even more beautiful than the moon itself. It happens many times… your photograph may be more beautiful than you are in reality. You can be photogenic. There are many people who are photogenic – their photos come out very beautiful, but if you look at those people they are not so beautiful in reality.
When he was returning, full of the joy of the moonlight and the ocean, he saw small ponds by the side of the road. Just in the morning it had rained, and there were small pools of water, dirty, but the moon was reflected as beautifully in those dirty water pools as it was reflected in the vast ocean.
That opened his eyes to a new truth – that the moon is the moon whether you have a very beautiful mirror or a very ordinary mirror. The reality of the moon remains untouched. For the first time, he felt relaxed about the old man who had been annoying him. And rather than going to his own home, for the first time he went to the old man’s house. His eyes were full of the beauty of the moon, the ocean, the small pools of water. And he said to the old man, “I have seen God.”
The old man hugged him and he said, “I know. I can see it from your face, from your eyes. I can see it from the way you have come to me for the first time. Now I will not harass you; I will not come again. I have been harassing you again and again, because I knew your potential. I would be very happy if you can tell me how you found God.”
Rabindranath said, “Looking at the reflection of the moon in the ocean, and then looking at the many reflections by the side, in dirty water pools. But the moon was not dirty, the reflection was not dirty; it was as beautiful as in the ocean. Just then I remembered you – because I have been irritated with you, I have been annoyed with you. I was blind. I could not see God in you. I only saw God in beautiful people, in flowers, in the moon. But I know now it does not matter who you are. To me now, you are also a reflection of God, and I am grateful to you that you went on poking me, pushing me towards this realization.”
When your heart is full it becomes a mirror, it reflects that which is the truth. And if you see and understand that, time certainly stops. It is a great realization.
And it is true that I am only body – available to all that has been discovered and also to that which will ever be discovered about the inner being of man. I have surrendered myself to existence. I don’t know myself what I am going to say.
Yes, just like Almustafa, I am not “speaking” anything, I am also a listener. And the one who is speaking has spoken through Mahavira, through Buddha, through Confucius, through Lao Tzu – through millions of mystics. Because the mystery is the same: that the mystic becomes a hollow bamboo and allows existence to sing its songs.
Jivan Mary, you are blessed; and you will be more and more blessed. The door has opened and the ultimate has given you a challenge, and I know you are courageous enough to move. However arduous may be the path, it is beautiful – its glory is beyond words.
-OSHO
From The Rebellious Spirit, Chapter Two
Copyright© OSHO International Foundation
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