The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty Talks on Kabir

UNTIL IT SHINES,

BUT INSIDE THERE IS NO MUSIC,

THEN WHAT?

You can go on scrubbing your ethical skin, you can go on polishing your morality, you can become a really polished man, but if inside there is no music, if meditation has not happened, if you have not heard the unheard, if you have not seen the unseen, if you have not penetrated into the unknowable, if that soundless sound is not heard, it is all futile. You are simply wasting your time.

A Zen story:

Seeing that the Master himself is doing this, he cannot believe it. A Master is not supposed to disturb the disciple while he is meditating. What kind of Master is he? But a Master is a Master, so you cannot be rude to him. He waits, but how long can you wait? Constant rubbing of the brick on the stone -- his teeth are getting on edge. Finally he says, "Stop it! What are you doing?"

And the Master says, "And what have you been doing for twenty years? Scrubbing, scrubbing... trying to polish your mind? That you call meditation? Your postures, your techniques -- they are all mind-based. I am trying to make a mirror of this brick!"

The disciple says, "That is impossible. You can go on rubbing, but the brick will never become a mirror."

And the Master says, "That's what I have come to say to you. Twenty years you have been rubbing, scrubbing, polishing, and the mind has not become meditation and the mind has not become a mirror. Drop the mind! Don't cultivate it."
By dropping the mind it becomes a mirror. Mind itself never becomes a mirror. Mind is the barrier. Hidden behind the mind is your consciousness. And once you enter behind the mind you hear the music. That music transforms you into a new being -- it is a rebirth.
MOHAMMED'S SON PORES OVER WORDS,

AND POINTS OUT THIS

AND THAT,

BUT IF HIS CHEST IS NOT SOAKED DARK WITH LOVE,

THEN WHAT?
KABIR SAYS THIS IS SO WITH EVERYBODY -- the Hindu pundit goes on speculating upon words, playing upon words. The Mohammedan scholar, Mohammed's son, PORES OVER WORDS.... Words have become so important that we have forgotten that we have to enter into a wordless state of consciousness. Go on repeating the Koran, or the Bible, or the Vedas, and it is of no use at all, because you will only be gathering more and more knowledge -- all borrowed. And a truth borrowed becomes a lie. A truth expressed in words immediately loses its truthfulness. Words are too small; they cannot contain the great sky of the truth within themselves. They crush the truth, they destroy it. And when words reach you, you will give a meaning to them which is yours.

Krishna speaks, Jesus speaks, I am speaking to you... if here there are two thousand people, do you think everybody is hearing the same thing? There are two thousand meanings. The speaker is one, my meaning is one, but immediately I assert it it becomes two thousand -- two thousand meanings.

The last name on the Pope s list is that of a German New Testament scholar with a reputation for being highly skeptical with respect to all manner of historical information about Jesus. The Holy Father debates with himself whether this gentleman should be informed, but finally, in the interests of ecumenism and because in this case such an already formed attitude of skepticism might actually be of some use, he makes the telephone call. The German critic, instead of being overwhelmed by the news that Jesus' bones had not been resurrected, registers his surprise in a fashion which takes the Pope's own breath away.

"Ach so," the scholar responds, "then he did live!"
One is worried about resurrection -- the same news -- but the other's response is totally different. His worry is, "Ach so, then he did live!" If the bones are genuine, then Jesus becomes a historical figure.

Whenever you hear something it is always from your background that you hear it; it is your background that interprets it. The meaning is given by you.

"I am glad to hear you say that," replied Mooney with a sigh of relief, "Everybody else says it is all my fault!"

Listen to me as you listen to music or the sound of running water or the wind passing through the pine trees, and then there is a possibility of some communion happening, a possibility that some meaning that I am trying to convey reaches you. But it is really difficult. It is one of the most difficult things in the world to be a disciple.

To be a disciple means listening without any background, just listening without interpreting, just listening without for or against, without believing, without disbelieving -- a pure kind of listening. And the beauty of truth is that if you can listen silently with no judgement, if it is true it will ring bells in your heart. But the bells will be rung in the heart, not in the head. If it is untrue, no bells will be rung in the heart. You will know whether it is true or untrue -- not by thinking about it, but just by listening in total silence.
MOHAMMED'S SON PORES OVER WORDS,

AND POINTS OUT THIS

AND THAT,

BUT IF HIS CHEST IS NOT SOAKED DARK WITH LOVE,

THEN WHAT?

Unless your heart responds, the head cannot become a bridge to God. Your heart needs to be soaked with love. But you don't know anything about the heart. The society has not allowed you to go through the heart; it has tried in every way to bypass the heart. The whole effort of the society is to pull you to the head directly without moving through the heart, because the ways of the heart are mysterious, uncontrollable.

The ways of the head are controllable, manipulatable. Hence the society is interested in your head, not in your heart. The society wants you to understand that there is no heart but only the head. The heart is nothing but a blood-pumping system; that's what the society wants you to believe This is one of the greatest untruths ever told.

By 'heart' is not meant the physical part. The physical part is simply a blood circulation system, but hidden behind the physical, just corresponding to it, very close to it, behind it, is the real heart. Just as hidden behind the brain is mind, so hidden behind the lungs is the heart, hidden behind the body is the soul.

Don't be finished with the physical. Always remember: corresponding to each physical phenomenon in you there is a spiritual phenomenon. Unless your heart starts functioning, IS SOAKED DARK WITH LOVE... and why dark? Because love has the depth of darkness, the density of darkness. Love grows in mysterious ways not in the light, because light makes everything demystified. Love is more dark than anything else. It is a dark, dense, mysterious world.

And if you are afraid of the dark, you will be afraid of love too. If you are afraid of the night, you will be afraid of love too. If you are afraid of the dark, the night, death, love, then you are afraid of all that is mysterious -- then you have to exist only on the surface, then you will never be able to penetrate to the center of being.

The original is:
IK PREM-RAS CHAKHA NAHIN,

AMLI HUA TO KYA HUA?

You have not tasted the juice of love -- and you have become a great saint? and you have great character and great morality? And you have not even tasted the juice of love? Then all your saintliness and all your morality is holy cow-dung. You are carrying an unnecessary weight. The sooner you drop it the better.
THE YOGI COMES ALONG IN HIS FAMOUS ORANGE.

BUT IF INSIDE HE IS COLOURLESS THEN WHAT?

The real question is of getting coloured inside. The outer colour is only symbolic. It is a gesture; it is not the end -- it is the beginning. It is simply your saying that I am ready." But don't think that if you are wearing orange then sannyas has happened. Your gesture has happened, you have moved on the way.

There are two initiations. One is the formal: the day you become a sannyasin, you change to orange -- that is formal. But without the formal, the informal is difficult. If you cannot even change your clothes, how will you change your being? But just changing your clothes is not synonymous with changing your being.

Kabir says:
THE YOGI COMES ALONG IN HIS FAMOUS ORANGE.

BUT IF INSIDE HE IS COLOURLESS, THEN WHAT?

VAKIF NAHIN US RANG SE

KAPARE RANGE SE KYA HUA?

You have not known the colour of God, you have not know the colour of love, you have not known the colour of life. Orange is the colour of blood, life; orange is the colour of fire, love; orange is the colour of the sunrise, the transforma-tion -- the declaration that the night has ended.

But the being has to be coloured. Your soul has to become red with love, with joy, with celebration. In India, orange is the colour of spring -- a springtime has to come into your inner being so that flowers that have waited and waited for centuries can bloom, so that buds can open.

Kabir says:
EVERY INSTANT THAT THE SUN IS RISEN,

IF I STAND IN THE TEMPLE, OR ON A BALCONY,

IN THE HOT FIELDS, OR IN A WALLED GARDEN,

MY OWN LORD IS MAKING LOVE WITH ME.

Meditate over this tremendously important statement:
... MY OWN LORD IS MAKING LOVE WITH ME.

THE MAN OF ABSOLUTE CONSCIOUSNESS remains in a constant orgasmic state. Just as two lovers reach an orgasmic climax only for a moment and then it is gone, and a sadness comes in the wake, so the man of total awareness, the Buddha, the enlightened person, remains for twenty-four hours a day in an orgasmic state:

And wherever I am, Kabir says, it makes no difference -- in the temple or in the mosque or in the fields or in a walled garden -- it doesn't matter where I am. Wherever I am, my Lord, my Beloved, is making love with me.

Love is the quintessence of religion. And to be orgasmic is to be a sannyasin -- and to become so orgasmic that it continues day in, day out; even when you are asleep, the meeting continues. You go on melting and merging into God, and God goes on melting and merging into you.

The wall between you and the whole has been removed, there is no separation. That state of non-separation, that state of UNIO MYSTICA -- the mystic union -- is the ultimate expression of love. The lowest is the man/woman relationship and the ultimate, the highest, is the meeting of the meditator with the whole.

Hence I say the journey is from sex to superconsciousness. Sex is the beginning of the journey -- don't reject it. If you reject the beginning, you will never reach the end. But remember that it is only the beginning; don't get stuck there. You have to go farther and farther ahead; you have to transcend it. And as you go higher in meditation, the less and less sexual you are bound to become.

This is happening every day to my sannyasins. The whole country thinks that here nothing but sex is happening, but the reality is just the opposite. This may be the only place where thousands of people are totally losing interest in sex -- because going through it is going beyond it. To go beyond one has to go through, because without knowing it there is no way to transcend it.

The sexual orgasm reveals two secrets to you: one is that in the climax, at the peak, the ego disappears; and the second, time disappears. And these are the two secrets of meditation. One day meditating you will come to know that sex is not needed at all because the ego and time can disappear without going into sex at all.

Sex is a natural way of meditation; it is a gift of nature, to keep reminding you that this is possible. Mind, time, ego, all can disappear; if they can disappear for a single moment, then why not for ever? Sex is a natural window into God, but only a window. You need not remain confined behind it. You can jump out of the window and you can come into the open, in the sun, under the sky. But the window made it possible for you.

Because sex helps you to know a few moments of egolessness, timelessness, mindlessness, it makes it possible that you can long for, desire a permanent state, an eternal state of orgasmic joy -- satchitanand.

Kabir is absolutely right. Nobody else has said it so clearly: My own Lord is making love with me, and every moment of the day, irrespective of where I am, of what I am doing. This has to become the experience of each of my sannyasins.

This is my message to you. You have to actualize this potential in you. One day you have to be able to declare to the world: "The Lord is making love with me twenty-four hours a day. I am in an orgasmic state. Not only am I in an orgasmic state, but I am the orgasmic state."

That's what enlightenment is all about. Once it is achieved, nobody can fall from it. Once it is achieved, all is achieved.

Chapter #11

Chapter title: The Paradox that Life is.

21 April 1979 am in Buddha Hall

ShortTitle: FISH11

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 110 mins

The first question

OSHO, PLEASE COMMENT ON THE ART OF BALANCED LIVING. MR LIFE IS OFTEN AN EXPERIENCE OF EXTREMES, WITH THE MIDDLE ROAD DIFFICULT TO MAINTAIN FOR ANY LENGTH OF TIME.

LIFE CONSISTS OF EXTREMES. Life is a tension between the opposites. To be exactly in the middle for ever means to be dead. The middle is only a theoretical possibility; only once in a while are you in the middle, as a passing phase. It is like walking on a tightrope: you can never be exactly in the middle for any length of time. If you try, you will fall.

To be in the middle is not a static state, it is a dynamic phenomenon. Balance is not a noun, it is a verb; it is BALANCING. The tightrope-walker continuously moves from the left to the right, from the right to the left. When he feels now he has moved too much to the left and there is fear of falling, he immediately balances himself by moving to the opposite, to the right. Passing from the left to the right, yes, there is a moment when he is in the middle. And again when he has moved too much to the right, there is fear of falling, he is losing balance, he starts moving towards the left. Passing from the right to the left, again he moves through the middle for a moment.

This is what I mean when I say balance is not a noun but a verb -- it is balancing, it is a dynamic process. You cannot be in the middle. You can go on moving from left to right and right to left; this is the only way to remain in the middle.

Don't avoid extremes, and don't choose any one extreme. Remain available to both the polarities -- that is the art, the secret of balancing. Yes, sometimes be utterly happy, and sometimes be utterly sad -- both have their own beauties.

Our mind is a chooser; that's why the problem arises. Remain choiceless. And whatsoever happens and wherever you are, right or left, in the middle or not in the middle, enjoy the moment in its totality. While happy, dance, sing, play music -- be happy! And when sadness comes, which is bound to come, which is coming, which has to come, which is inevitable, you cannot avoid it... if you try to avoid it you will have to destroy the very possibility of happiness. The day cannot be without the night, and the summer cannot be without the winter, and life cannot be without death.

Let this polarity sink deep in your being -- there is no way to avoid it. The only way is to become more and more dead. Only the dead person can be in a static middle. The alive person will be constantly moving -- from anger to compassion, from compassion to anger. And he accepts both! And he is not identified with either. He remains aloof and yet involved. He remains distant yet committed. He enjoys and yet he remains like a lotus flower in water -- in water, and yet the water cannot touch it.

Gregg Johnson, your very effort to be in the middle, and to be in the middle for ever and always, is creating an unnecessary anxiety for you. In fact, to desire to be in the middle for ever is another extreme, the worst kind of extreme, because it is the impossible kind. It cannot be fulfilled.

Just think of an old clock: if you hold the pendulum exactly in the middle, the clock will stop. The clock continues only because the pendulum goes on moving from the left to the right, from the right to the left. Yes, each time it passes through the middle, and there is a moment of that middleness, but only a moment. And it is beautiful! When you pass from happiness to sadness, and from sadness to happiness, there is a moment of utter silence exactly in the middle -- enjoy that too.

Life has to be lived in all its dimensions, only then is life rich. The leftist is poor, the rightist is poor, and the middlist is dead! The alive person is neither rightist nor leftist nor middlist -- he is a constant movement, he is a flow.

Why do we want to be in the middle in the first place? We are afraid of the dark side of life; we don't want to be sad, we don't want to be in a state of agony. But that is possible only if you are also ready to drop the possibility of being in ecstasy. There are a few who have chosen it -- that is the way of the monk. For centuries that has been the way of the monk. He is ready to sacrifice all possibilities of ecstasy just to avoid agony. He is ready to destroy all roseflowers just to avoid the thorns. But then his life is just flat... a long long boredom, stale, stagnant. He does not really live. He is afraid to live!

Life contains both: it brings great pain, it also brings great pleasure. Pain and pleasure are two sides of the same coin. If you leave one, you have to leave the other too. This has been one of the most fundamental misunderstandings down the ages, that you can leave pain and save pleasure, that you can avoid hell and have heaven, that you can avoid the negative and can have only the positive. This is a great fallacy. It is not possible in the very nature of things. The positive and negative ARE together, inevitably together, indivisibly together. They are two aspects of the same energy.

My sannyasins, or those who understand me, have to accept both. I am giving you a totally new insight: Be all! And when you are on the left, don't miss anything -- enjoy! Being on the left has its own beauty; you will not find it when you are on the right. It will be a different scene. And, yes, to be in the middle has its own silence, peace, and you will not find it on any extreme. So enjoy all! Go on enriching your life.

Can't you see any beauty in sadness? Meditate over it. Next time when you are sad don't fight with it, don't waste time in fighting. Accept it, welcome it -- let it be a welcome guest. And see deep into it, with love, care. Be a real host! And you will be surprised -- you will be surprised beyond your comprehension -- that sadness has a few beauties which happiness can never have. Sadness has depth, and happiness is always shallow. Sadness has tears, and tears go deeper than any laughter can ever go. And sadness has a silence of its own, a melody, which happiness can never have. It will have its own song, more noisy, but not so silent.

I am not saying choose sadness: I am just saying enjoy it too. And when you are happy, enjoy happiness. Swim on the surface too, and sometimes dive deep into the river. It is the same river! On the surface the play of ripples and waves, and the sunrays and the wind -- it has its own beauty. And diving deep into the water has its own quality, its own adventure, its own danger.

And don't become attached to anything. There are people who have become attached to sadness too -- psychology knows about them. They are called masochists: they go on creating situations in which they can remain miserable for ever. Misery is the only thing that they enjoy, they are afraid of happiness. In misery they are at home.

Many masochists become religious, because religion provides a great protection for the masochist mind. Religion gives a beautiful rationalization for being a masochist. Just being a masochist without being religious, you will feel condemned and you will feel ill -- ill-at-ease -- and you will know that you are abnormal, and you will feel guilty about what you are doing to your life. You will hide the fact.

But if a masochist becomes religious he can exhibit his masochism with great pride, because now it is no more masochism -- it is asceticism, it is austerity -- tapascharya -- it is self-discipline, not torture. Just the labels have been changed! Now nobody can call him abnormal -- he is a saint. Nobody can call him pathological -- he is pious, holy.

Masochists have always moved towards religion. Religion has a great attraction for masochists. In fact, so many masochists down the ages have moved towards religion -- it was very natural, that movement -- that religion became dominated by the masochists. That's why religion goes on insisting on being life-negative, life-destructive. It is not for life, it is not for love, it is not for joy. It goes on insisting that life is misery. By calling life misery, it rationalizes its own clinging to misery.

I have heard a beautiful story -- I don't know how far it is correct, I cannot vouch for it:

The bearer comes and in a tray brings three glasses of the juice called life and offers them. Buddha immediately closes his eyes and he says, "Life is misery."

Confucius closes his eyes half-way -- the middlist, he used to preach the golden mean -- and asks the bearer to give him the glass because he would like to have a sip, just a sip, because without tasting how can one say whether life is misery or not? He had a scientific mind. Confucius was not very mystic; he was a very pragmatic, earthbound mind. He was the first behaviourist the world has known, very logical.