The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty Talks on Kabir

Whereupon one male parakeet nudged the other with his wing and said, "Our prayers have been heard!"
The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty

Chapter #2

Chapter title: Feel, Love and Feel Alone

12 April 1979 am in Buddha Hall

ShortTitle: FISH02

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 104 mins

The first question

OSHO, WOULD YOU PLEASE SPEAK A LITTLE ON WITNESSING AND THE HEART. CAN THEY BE EXPERIENCED SIMULTANEOUSLY?

That non-identification is what is meant by witnessing. Then who is the witness? Mind is being seen, then who is the seer? It is the heart.

So the heart and witnessing are not two things. If you witness, you will be centered in the heart; or if you are centered in the heart, you will become a witness. These are two processes to reach the same goal. The lover, the devotee, never thinks of witnessing; he simply tries to reach the heart, the source of his being. Once he has reached the heart, witnessing comes of its own accord.

The meditator never thinks of love and the heart; he starts by witnessing. But once witnessing is there, the heart opens, because there is no other place from where to witness: The path of the meditator and the path of the devotee are different, but they culminate in one experience. At the ultimate point they reach the same peak.

You can choose the path, but you cannot choose the goal -- because there are not two goals, there is only one goal. Of course, if you have followed the path of a devotee, you will not talk of witnessing when you have arrived -- you will talk of love. If you have followed the path of meditation you will not talk of love when you have arrived -- you will talk of witnessing. The difference is only of words, language, expression -- but that which is expressed is one and the same reality.
The second question:

Question 2

OSHO, HOW TO SEE WHAT IS?
Akam,
THERE IS NO HOW TO SEE WHAT IS, because if you are carrying a how you will distort it. That which is needs no method, technique, to see it -- just silence, a transparent stillness, no thought in the mind, not even the thought of a certain method. No strategy, because all strategies are bound to distort.

In fact, no mind is needed to see that which is. Mind means thoughts. And if there is a traffic of thoughts, you will never be able to see what is, you will see something else. You will see what your thoughts allow you to see. Your thoughts prevent much reaching you.

You will be surprised to know what modern psychological researchers have come to know: ninety-eight percent of the reality is not allowed to enter in your being; the mind only allows two percent. So whatsoever you see is only two percent of the reality. And because the mind allows only two percent of the reality in and then gives you the feeling that this is the whole, you live in a false world. You think the part is the whole. And you live accordingly -- your whole life becomes a falsification.

The mind is a judge; it allows only that which suits it, which fits with it, which nourishes it, strengthens it. It does not allow anything that goes against it. For example, you are listening to me: your mind will allow only that which helps to strengthen your opinions, your ideologies. If you are a Christian, you will hear one thing; and if you are a Buddhist, you will hear something totally different. If you have come here with a prejudice, for or against, you will hear different things. I am saying the same thing, but a Christian will interpret it in his own way and the Buddhist in his own way and the communist in his own way.

One who has come with a determined idea that I am wrong will find all the arguments that help his prejudice. Each prejudice tries to get support for itself So if you think any methodology is needed to see that which is, then you are starting from the very beginning in a wrong way.

That which is is already there -- you be silent, without any prejudice, without any ideology, atheist, theist, without any concept, without any a priori. You simply remain available, open, like a child who knows nothing. Function from the state of not knowing and you will be able to see what is.

Let me repeat: function from the state of not knowing. If you know you will distort -- knowledge is mind. The state of not knowing means you have put the mind aside; now your eyes are without dust, your mirror is clean. It will reflect! It will reflect that which is.

This is the way one comes to encounter reality -- and the encounter is going to be shattering. It is not going to help your ideas about it. It will destroy all that you have been always thinking is right. It is going to surprise you. It is going to show you that you have lived up to now in a dream, that you have lived up to now in your own projections, that you have not allowed reality to penetrate you -- on the contrary, you have created a world of your own ideas around yourself You have lived in a capsule, without any windows. That's how people are living.

A Christian cannot know reality, a Hindu cannot know reality, a Mohammedan cannot know reality. Only a man who is courageous enough to drop all this garbage, who can simply be, who can simply be innocent.... Jesus says to his disciples, "Unless you are like small children you will not enter into my kingdom of God." He is saying: Function from the state of not knowing.

The Upanishads say: Those who claim to know, beware -- they know nothing. Those who say they know not, surrender to them -- because there is a possibility of some transformation happening around them, with them, in communion with them.

Socrates at his ultimate peak of wisdom said, "I know only one thing, that I know nothing."

Function from the state of not knowing, and it will bring you immense, ecstatic experiences, because the person who is without knowledge is capable of wondering. The person who is without knowledge is capable of awe. He can dance seeing a rose flower, he can sing because the sky is full of stars. He can be in tune with existence. Seeing a sunset, he can go into wild ecstasy -- because he knows nothing. Life is a mystery to him. Knowledge demystifies life. Because he knows nothing, everything, the most ordinary too, becomes absolutely extraordinary, luminous, because everything is mysterious.

Everything Is mysterious! Your knowledge simply hides your ignorance and destroys your capacity to be mystified. Knowledge is destructive of mysticism. Hence all the mystics of all the ages have been saying one single thing: Drop knowledge -- all knowledge is rubbish. Be in a state of not knowing; function from that state. Look at trees like a child, look at the moon like a poet, look at the sky like a madman!

Akam, don't ask HOW to see what is, because that question 'how?' simply means you want some methodology, some knowledge, some information, so that you can interpret reality. But reality is uninterpretable. You want something so that you can explain to yourself what it is all about -- but reality is unexplainable. You would like to define reality, but it is indefinable.

Be ready to be surprised. I have heard:
Michelangelo was painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He was getting tired of lying on his back and in rolling over noticed that an Italian woman was praying down in the chapel. The great artist decided to play a little prank.

He sat at the edge of the scaffold and shouted, "I am Jesus Christ! I am Jesus Christ! Listen to me and I will perform miracles!"

The Italian lady looked up, clasping her rosary and answered back, "Shut upa your mouth! I'ma talka to your mother!"
Just think of Michelangelo.... Life is like that. It brings surprises each moment. You go on missing -- you go on missing because you can't see those surprises. You are so full of expectations, you are so full of ready-made answers, you go on interpreting it according to your own mind. You pass through a miraculous world, dull, dead, dragging. This world is nothing but miracles and miracles, and each moment they are happening. And not in a miserly way is the existence miraculous -- it is overflowing with miracles! But you have to be again a little child, you have to be again innocent.

It is not a question of method, not a question of how. It is more a question of understanding the very process of how the mind functions. And when you have understood how the mind functions, you will put it aside. Then there is no barrier between you and reality. And when there is no barrier, there is no separation either -- because it is the barrier that separates. When there is no barrier, you are one with reality. In that oneness, the reality reveals its secrets to you.

Question 3

OSHO, DO I HAVE TO FORGET MYSELF TO LOSE MY EGO?
Eva,
IT IS NOT A QUESTION OF FORGETTING YOURSELF -- on the contrary, it is a question of remembering yourself.What is the ego? Ego exists because you have forgotten yourself, because you don't remember who you are. And it is very difficult to live without SOME idea of who you are. Not knowing the reality of your being, you have to create a false substitute.

What is the ego? Ego is the false substitute that you have created for the self. It is not your self, but it is very difficult to live without a self -- it will be almost impossible to live without a self some kind of self is needed, is a must; otherwise, how will you keep yourself together? You will start falling apart.

Even if the center is false, it helps you. Even a false center keeps you at least somehow together. You have forgotten yourself -- hence you need the ego.

If you remember yourself, there will be no need for the ego.

Your name is the first name that was ever given.When Haavva was created because man was alone, Adam was alone, and was very much depressed because of the loneliness... the whole existence and Adam was lonely. He asked God to give him a companion, and God created a woman. God asked Adam,''What are you going to call her?What name would you like to give her?" And he was so ecstatic that now at least there was somebody with whom he could be friendly, with whom he could be loving, with whom he could talk, communicate, with whom there was a possibility of relating. He was no more alone! -- he was so ecstatic that he said he would call this creature 'Eve', 'Eva', 'Haavva'.

"Why?" God asked.

And Adam said, "Because Eve, Eva or Haavva means life -- she is my life. Without her I was almost dead."

But when Eve was created, there was no name. A name was given to her because Adam would need it. Sometimes he would have to call her: "Where are you?" Sometimes the name would be needed -- but a name is a false thing, it is just a label. We give names to people just to make it helpful to commune, to relate, to call, to address. But names are not real! You need not drop them, and even if you drop them nothing will be dropped.

You can drop this name 'Eva' -- nothing will be dropped. Simply an idea! And you are no more attached to it. In exactly the same way: the name is for others to call you by, but you need something to call yourself by too -- that's what the ego is: I.

If you want to say something about yourself, you need some word -- that word is 'I'. Names are for others to call you by; the ego is for you to call yourself by, to address yourself. It is also false, it does not exist. You need not lose it. All that is needed is to understand it -- why this 'I' has become so important, why it has become so significant, so central, so substantial. A shadow has become so substantial -- why? Because you don't know yom real self

When Jesus says 'I', he does not mean the same 'I'.When he says, "I am the gate, I am the truth, I am the way," his 'I' does not connote any ego. When Krishna says to Arjuna, "Come to my feet, surrender to me," his 'me' is not the same as your 'me'.

Buddha used to say to his disciples, "Be a light unto yoursel." A great King, Prasenjit, had come to see him. And he saw many sannyasins coming and bowing to Bud&a, and saying: "BUDDHAM SHARNAM GACHCHHAMI -- I go to the feet of the Buddha. SANGHAM SHARNAM GACHCHHAMI -- I go to the feet of the community of the Buddhas. DHAMMAM SHARNAM GACHCHHAMI -- I go to the feet of the ultimate law, the ultimate law that supports existence, that runs like a thread and makes the existence a garland."

Prasenjit was a man of logic, well-educated, sophisticated. He was a little bit puzzled. He asked Bud&a, "Excuse me, Sir, but you say to people, 'Be a light unto yourself,' and then they surrender to you, and they touch your feet -- you don't prevent them. This is illogical, this is contradictory. If you say 'Be a light unto yourself,' then there is no need to surrender to anybody else. Then why should they touch your feet?"

And Buddha laughed and he said, "They are not my feet, and they are not surrendering to ME -- because there is nobody inside me as the ego who can claim. I am just an excuse -- they are surrendering. It is not a surrender to me; it is simply a surrender -- I am just an excuse. Because they are not yet capable of surrendering without any excuse, I allow them to use me as an excuse. But there is nobody to whom they are surrendering."

That's exactly the meaning of a Buddha: one who is not; in the sense of an ego, one who is not. But as hr as the supreme self is concerned, the ultimate self is concerned, he is and you are not. The ego is a false idea, and it is needed because the real self is unknown.

Eva, you need not forget yourself to lose the ego -- in fact, that's how you have gained it. You need to remember yourself, not to forget but to remember. You have to become more aware and alert, you have to wake up. You have to see who you are, not what has been told to you -- that you are a woman, that you are a man, that you are a Hindu, a Christian, a white or a black -- not what has been told to you.

You will have to go inside your being to the very innermost core and see who you are. In that very seeing, in that very remembering, the ego disappears.When the light comes, the darkness disappears; when the real self is remembered, the unreal is no more needed. And it is not that you have to drop it: it is simply not found.

But we live in the ego, and in every possible way we go on finding new props for it. In every act we go on nourishing it -- even in those actions of which you are not the doer you go on claiming that you are doing it. People say, "I am breathing." Just look at the absurdity of it. If you are breathing then you will never die; death will come and stand in front of you and you will go on breathing. You may not oblige death; you may say, "I am not going to stop breathing."

You are not breathing; breathing is not your activity, it is not your doing -- it IS happening. You cannot breathe. If it stops, it stops. If the next breath is not going to come back, you will not be able to do anything. Breathing is a happening, but man has made it, or at least believes it to be, a doing.

You say, "I love." Even the expression 'love-making' is utter nonsense. You cannot love; you cannot not love. Love is a happening, not a doing.What can you do about love? Either it happens or it doesn't happen. If you try, then it will be something false, then it will not be love at all -- then it will only be acting.

If you are ordered to love a woman or a man, what are you going to do? You will go through empty gestures: you will hug and you will kiss and you will go through all the movements, and with no love at all. The whole thing will be mechanical! And that's what is going on, what goes on around the world. The wife has to love the husband, the husband has to love the wife -- it is a kind of duty to be fulfilled. It becomes a performance, acting. It is not real, hence it is not satisfying, it brings no contentment, no fulfillment.

The ego is very cunning in that way: it goes on finding supports, props, new pastures to feed itself on. If you fail, you blame circumstances. If you succeed, it is you who have succeeded. If you fail it is fate, kismet; if you fail it is the society, the ugly society. If you fail, it is the cunning people, the cunning competitors. But if you succeed, you succeed.

A great Sufi story:

The crowd became silent: "Yes, there is a lesson in it."

Next arrow... and it simply went far ahead, it left the target behind. That was also a failure; the crowd started laughing again. And Mulla said, "Be silent! You don't understand these secrets." He turned to his disciples and said, "Look, this is how a man who thinks himself very superior behaves. He will never reach the target. He runs so fast that he will bypass the goal, and he will not stop at the goal. He is too confident. He is also unbalanced."

The crowd again became silent: "Yes, there is a lesson."

And Mulla tried the third time... and the arrow went directly into the target. Now the crowd was silent and waiting for what Mulla was going to teach to his disciples.

He went to the owner and demanded the money. The owner said, "Why?"

He said, "This is me! The first was the arrow of a man who suffers from an inferiority complex; the second the arrow of the man who suffers from a superiority complex -- and this is Mulla Nasruddin's arrow. Where is the money?"
This is what we go on doing. In each situation, watch.When you fail, it is God, it is fate, it is society, circumstances... a thousand and one names. But the simple phenomenon is that you don't want to take the responsibility because it hurts the ego. But when you succeed, it is always you -- it is never God, never fate, never circumstances, never your cunning strategies, no. It is simply you, your talents, your genius, your intelligence. It is always you when you succeed.

Watch the ego, and don't feed it. It dies if you don't feed it. If you stop feeding it, it starves to death.

"He is feeling no pain now," said Mrs. Croy. "What did he die of?"

"Poor fella," said Mrs. Cochrane. "He died of the gonorrhoea."

Another woman gazed at the corpse. "He is well out of it now," she said. "He has got a smile of serenity on his face. What did he die from?"

"He died of the gonorrhoea!" said the widow.

Suddenly, the son pulled his mother aside. "Mom," he said, "that's a terrible thing to say about Pop. He did not die of gonorrhoea -- he died of diarrhoea!"

"I know that," said Mrs. Cochrane, "but I would rather have them thinking he died like a sport -- instead of the shit that he was!"
The ego is constantly there, in every situation -- it will not miss any situation to feed itself, to strengthen itself. Stop feeding the ego -- that is the first thing to do.

And the second thing is: become more aware. Walking, walk with awareness; listening, listen with total awareness -- not in a kind of sleep, not so-so, not lukewarm. Talking, talk with awareness.Whatsoever you are doing, let your whole life be coloured by awareness. And slowly slowly that awareness will bring you a vision of your real self.

So this is a double attack on the ego. First, don't feed it; second, become more aware -- so the ego disappears by starvation and the self appears by being aware. And once the clouds of ego are no more there, the self rises like a sun. And that self has nothing to do with your 'I'. Still the word will be used. I use it, Jesus uses it, Buddha uses it -- it has to be used, but now it has a totally different meaning. On the lips of a Buddha or a Krishna or a Christ it has a totally different connotation.

When the being is transformed, everything is transformed -- even the language that is uttered by a Buddha has a totally different meaning. His words can't have the same meaning. It is impossible! because now a new light has happened, and in that new light everything becomes new.

You live in darkness, you stumble in darkness, you grope in darkness. The man of awareness lives in light. He never stumbles, he never gropes. He moves with grace, he has a totally different quality of being, life, love.

Do two things, Eva: first, don't feed the ego any more -- enough is enough -- and second, become more aware. This is a double attack, from two sides. It always succeeds; it has never failed.

OSHO, NEVER BEFORE HAVE I FELT SO MUCH LOVE AND NEVER BEFORE SO ALONE. THANK YOU, OSHO...

People think just the opposite. People think, "When you are in love, how can you be alone?" They don't make any distinction between two words: loneliness and aloneness. Hence the confusion.

When you are in love, you cannot be lonely; that is true. But when you are in love, you are bound to be alone -- that is even far truer. Loneliness is a negative state. Loneliness means you are hankering for the other. Loneliness means you are dark, dismal, in despair. Loneliness means you are frightened. Loneliness means you are feeling left behind. Loneliness means nobody needs you. It hurts. Loneliness is like a wound.

Aloneness is like a flower. I know your dictionaries will say that loneliness and aloneness are synonyms -- they are not. They are totally different phenomena. Loneliness is a wound and can turn into a cancer. Many more people die of loneliness than of any other disease. The world is full of lonely people, and because of their loneliness they go on doing all kinds of stupid things to somehow stuff that wound, that hollowness, that emptiness, that negativity.

The lonely person starts eating too much, just to feel full. The lonely person starts gathering fat. The lonely person starts taking alcohol or other drugs, from soma to LSD -- because he wants to forget himself The loneliness is so ugly, so scary, so deathlike that one wants to escape from it. The lonely person sits before his TV glued to the chair for four, five, even six hours. The average American sits for six hours before the TV -- just burning his eyes. But what else to do? Where to go? With whom to commune?