The Perfect Master, Vol 1 Talks on Sufi Stories

And the dervish is right:

A man becomes only of some account when he stops desiring. The moment you stop desiring, you are yourself. Suddenly you become awakened to your innermost being.

A famous ancient parable:
Once ten men forded a swift and dangerous river. Upon reaching the shore, they counted to see if all had arrived safely. But each man could count but nine. A passerby, hearing their wailing over the loss of a comrade, counted the men and discovered there were ten. He then asked each man to count, and when he counted, he counted only nine. The stranger touched him oh the chest and said, "YOU ARE THE TENTH!"
That's the function of a Master: to put his hand on your heart and to say to you, "You are the tenth!"

You go on searching everywhere, except in your own being. You count everybody else, but then it only comes up to nine, one is missing. And you can go on looking for that one for ever and ever, and you will not find -- because THAT ONE IS YOU!

A man becomes an emperor the moment he finds himself.
In the same way, a great scientist, A.S. Eddington, says: "We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown. We have devised profound theories, one after another, to account for its origin. At last we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the footprint. And, lo! It is our own."
You are the tenth. If this simple key becomes available to you, you are the emperor. Then all the treasures of life are open for you, and all the mysteries therein.

But everybody is rushing to find where it is... and it is inside you The I ought is not outside, the sought is in the seeker. The God is not outside, the God is in the seeker. Seek, and you will seek in vain. Stop seeking, and look within, and you have found it: And, lo! It is our own footprint.

The tenth is missing, and the tenth is you.
The Perfect Master, Vol 1

Chapter #8

Chapter title: The Grass Grows By Itself

28 June 1978 am in Buddha Hall

ShortTitle: PERF108

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 101 mins

The first question:

WHAT EXACTLY DO YOWL MEAN BY 'CONSCIOUS IGNORANCE'? IS IT THE RECOGNITION THAT ONE IS ULTIMATELY, FUNDAMENTALLY IGNORANT? OR IS THERE MORE TO IT?

Conscious ignorance means innocence AND conscious. If innocence is unconscious, sooner or later it will be corrupted by knowledge. Unconscious mind is always ready to be corrupted, polluted, distracted.

Consciousness means centering, awareness -- you cannot be distracted. You remain in your knowing, but you don't accumulate knowledge. Knowledge is always of the past: knowing is in the present, is of the present. Like a mirror: the mirror reflects if something comes before it, but when it passes the mirror is empty again. This is conscious ignorance -- not that the mirror does not reflect: it reflects, but it doesn't gather. It is not like a photo plate.

A photo plate becomes knowledgeable. The moment something is reflected in it, it catches hold of it. It becomes attached to it. The mirror remains unattached -- available, open, vulnerable, unprotected, with no defense, yet ALWAYS virgin. This is virginity: when nothing corrupts you. Things come and pass.

When the Emperor Wu asked Bodhidharma, "Who are you?" he simply said, "I don't know."

This is conscious ignorance. We misunderstood him. He thought, "Then what is the point? If you don't even know who you are, then what is the difference between me and you? I also don't know who I am."

We is simply ignorant. Bodhidharma is consciously ignorant. And that word 'consciousness' makes all the difference -- all the difference that there is in the world. It transforms the whole quality of ignorance. Ignorance becomes luminous. It is full of light -- not full of knowledge but full of light.

Those who know, they know something totally different. They know that "I am not -- God is." They know that "My existence is arbitrary. My existence is a make-believe. 'I' as a separate entity has never existed. I am just a wave in the ocean."

But when the wave is arising and reaching to the clouds, it can believe that "I am." And the ocean meanwhile is laughing and roaring, and knows that this wave has gone crazy. Soon the wave will disappear in the ocean again. Even when it IS there, it is not separate from the ocean. You cannot separate a wave from the ocean! Can you exist even for a single moment without the universe surrounding you? Not for a single moment.

So who are you? what are you?

And, secondly, ignorance does not mean that one is ignorant. It simply means that life is ultimately mysterious. The emphasis is not on your ignorance, remember it, because the ego is very cunning. It can survive even on the idea of ignorance. It can say, "I am ignorant -- fundamentally, ultimately I am ignorant. But I am."

First it was claiming its existence through knowledge: "My knowledge is valid. Nobody else's knowledge is valid." Now it claims, "No knowledge is valid -- I am ignorant. But I am." Now, behind ignorance, the I is hiding again. It has taken another face, a new mask, a new persona, but it is the old game being played with new rules. The form has changed but the content is the same -- the same dream, the same stupid dream. The same arbitrary ego claiming absoluteness about itself.

No. When I say ignorance, my emphasis is never on 1. My emphasis is on the ultimate mysteriousness of existence. Ignorance is ultimate because existence cannot be reduced to knowledge. It is irreducible. It is a mystery, and remains a mystery. You cannot demystify it.

In fact, the more you try to demystify it, the more and more mysterious it becomes. It gathers new dimensions of mysteries.

Just watch: five thousand years of human mind's evolution -- has it helped in any way to demystify existence? Existence has become far more mysterious than it has ever been before. Go back five thousand years: there was a limited number of stars, because by the bare naked eye you cannot count more than three thousand stars in the night. When the night is dark and full of stars and there are no clouds, at the most you can count three thousand stars, not more than that, by the bare naked eye. How many stars are there? Now they say, "We have counted three thousand billion stars. We used to see only three thousand, now there are three thousand billion stars. And this is not the end: this is just the beginning of the counting."

The existence goes ON and on. There seems to be no possibility that it will be ending somewhere.

When the Vedic mystics looked at the sky, it was mysterious. When you look at the sky it is far more mysterious. Medic mystics will feel jealous of you -- but you don't look at the sky.

For thousands of years man believed that life, existence, consists of matter. Now physicists say there is no matter -- all is energy. They have not been able to solve the mystery of matter. The mystery has become very deep. Now there is no matter -- it is all energy.

And what is energy? Now, even to define it is becoming difficult -- because it was possible to define it in contrast with matter. Now there is NO matter. How to define it? Definition is lost. It is there in its sheer mystery. And the efforts that have been made to define it have made it look even more mysterious.

If you go into modern physics, you will be surprised. Mystics look not so mysterious now -- with all God and heaven and angels and souls, even then they don't look so mysterious. The modern world of physics is far more mysterious, incomprehensibly mysterious. And the infinite space....

And Albert Einstein says it goes on expanding... into what? And he says, "We don't know yet into what. But one thing is certain: it goes on expanding."

Existence is expanding, into what? Naturally, the question arises. There must be some space beyond it, but that cannot be said. By the very definition of existence that is prohibited, because when we say 'existence', we mean ALL that is, space included. ALL THAT IS. Then how does it expand? into what? There is nothing left outside it!

It is almost as mysterious as one day you go to the market and you keep yourself in your own pocket. It is possible to keep yourself in your own pocket? It should be -- if existence can expand without there being anything to expand into. All space is in, in its pocket, and it goes on expanding into its own pocket! Looks absurd. Zen khans are nothing compared to it.

Albert Einstein says the world is finite. That too is mysterious. If the world is finite, then there must be something to define it. There must be a boundary! If you call it finite, then there must be a boundary to it. But to make a boundary you will have to accept something beyond the boundary, otherwise the boundary cannot be drawn. The boundary can be drawn only between two things!

You can have a fence around your house because of the neighbor . If there is NO neighbor, nothing exists beyond your fence, how are you going to put the fence and where? And how will you decide that "This is the place where we should put the fence," that "This part belongs to me and there is nothing outside it"?

But Albert Einstein says this is how it is: "We can't explain it, but this is how it is. The world is finite and yet there is no boundary to it. Unbounded finiteness!" Absurd! Illogical!

And not only that: this unbounded finiteness is round in shape -- because everything is round. How can an unbounded thing be round? Who will give it the shape of roundness?

The mystery has thickened every day. And Albert Einstein is just on the threshold of existence. It is maddening.

So when I say 'conscious ignorance', I don't mean that you ARE ignorant: I mean that life is so vast and existence so infinite that there is no way to fathom it. You cannot measure it; it is immeasurable.

And I am not saying that what is not said and you understand inside is enough -- even that is not enough. NOTHING IS enough. That is the meaning when I say existence is mysterious. It simply cannot be understood.

To see this point makes one feel humble. To see this point to let it sink in your heart, one feels like bowing down. To bow down before this mystery that is unfathomable -- not only unknown but unknowable -- is prayer.
The second question:
Question 2

I REMEMBER.

I LET GO.

I FORGET.

I LET GO.

MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH LIFE

KEEPS DEEPENING.

STILL, I AM NOT WITHOUT DOUBTS.

BUT THE PLUNGE FORWARD!

A DANCE UNPREDICTABLE.

AND I ALLOW ALL AROUND...

DISSOLVE IN THROUGH SOUND...

AHH, OSHO -- THANK YOU.
A QUESTION ON POLARITIES:

MAN-WOMAN, ZEN-SUFI...

CAN ANY ONE BEING ENCOMPASS IT ALL?
YES, KAVITA, I AM ENCOMPASSING it all -- so can you. Because being is vast. Being is neither male nor female. Bodies are male and female. Psychologies are male and female. But not being. Being is simply being.

At the very core of your existence, there is no man, no woman. The consciousness is beyond polarity. When you are witness sing your body, if you are a man you will see a man's body there as an object; if you are a woman, you will see a woman's body as an object. But the witness is the witness, man or woman. The witness is neither. The witness is simply there -- a witness, that's all. A consciousness, an awareness.

That awareness comprehends all. When you become a witness, when you become a Buddha, all is comprehended. Then there is no question of polarities.

The world is not just polar. That is the meaning of the Christian idea of the Trinity and the Hindu concept of Trimurti. The world is not divided in two -- world is divided in three. The three is very fundamental. The two is on the surface and the three is at the center. Man-woman, on the surface. Zen-Sufi, on the surface. But as you move deeper, as you dive deep into your being, and you reach the center, all disappears. One simply is. A kind of purity, a pure existence.

Kavita, it is possible -- not only possible, it has to be made possible. That's my work here. On the path, be a Sufi or a Zen. When you reach the center, forget all about it. When the goal is reached, the path has to be forgotten. These are divisions of the path.

One can climb up a mountain from many sides, can choose different routes. And when you are moving on different routes, you look as if you are moving in different directions, sometimes opposite also. One is going to the north, another is going to the south, but ultimately, when you reach to the peak, you will have come to the same place.

At the peak, Buddha is Christ, Christ is Krishna, Krishna is Mohammed, Mohammed is Zarathustra, Zarathustra is Lao Tzu. At the peak ALL distinctions dissolve.

So, Kavita, right now be Zen, be Sufi, and when you have roached to the peak be Zen/Sufi -- then forget all about it! But on the path... one has to move on some path. And all paths are good, because they all lead to the same goal. All doors are good, because they lead to the same shrine.

You say:
I REMEMBER.

I LET GO.

I forget.

I LET GO.

MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH LIFE

KEEPS DEEPENING.

STILL, I AM NOT WITHOUT DOUBTS.
Don't be worried about it! Doubts are perfectly natural on the path. If you are without doubts, that means you have reached the peak. They disappear only at the peak. They have a certain purpose -- they goad you, they keep you going.

Doubts are not necessarily hindrances. It depends on you, on how you use your doubts. They can become hindrances. If because of doubt you simply stop moving, you say, "Unless my doubt is dissolved I am not going to move," then the doubt has become a rock. But if you say, "The doubt is there, but in spite of the doubt I am going to move, because that is the only way to resolve it.... Unless I reach higher I cannot resolve this doubt" -- a better vision, from a height, will help.

Doubts are not resolved if you remain clinging to the same space where you are, because those doubts are created by THAT state of mind. If you remain clinging to that state, the doubts will persist; they will become stronger every day.

Doubts are not resolved by somebody else answering you. These are not philosophical doubts -- these are existential doubts. They are resolved only by experiencing. When you move a little higher, they disappear. You have reached to another state of mind. In that state of mind they cannot exist. Suddenly they disappear, as if they have never been there.

In spite of the doubt, one has to go on moving. In fact, one has to use the doubt as a goading to move. Listen to the doubt and say to the doubt, "Okay, I will remember you, but the only way to solve you is that I should go a little higher in my consciousness. I should become a little more alert. It is my unalertness that is creating you. It is my unconsciousness that is creating you, that is feeding you, nourishing you. It is my state of mechanicalness that is the cause of it."

If you try to solve your doubts where you are, you can gather many many answers from many many sources. They will make you knowledgeable, but not really -- they will fill you with information. But the doubt will remain somewhere. On the surface, you may start pretending that you know, but you will know that you don't know. And it will gnaw at your heart.

You can learn the answers, you can start telling those answers to others, but your very existence, your very life-style, will show that you don't know.

That is the difference between the Western and the Eastern philosophies. They should not be called by the same name, because their approaches are so basically different, so fundamentally different, so diametrically opposite.

The Western philosopher thinks, but never changes his state of awareness. He thinks where he is. He thinks hard, he thinks VERY logically. He tries in every way to solve the problem, and he finds many solutions. But those solutions don't help his life. If they don't even help HIS life, how can they help somebody else's life?

For example: the English thinker and philosopher, David Hume, arrived at the same conclusion as Gautam Buddha, exactly the same. Had he been in the East he would have become a Buddha, but unfortunately he was in the West, in the very thick of the Western noe-sphere.

He arrived at the same conclusion, not by changing his consciousness, but only by logical argumentation. Buddha became enlightened, Hume remained unenlightened. Buddha arrived at a state of bliss; Hume remained crawling on the earth in the same way as of old. Buddha created a new tradition which has remained alive even today; twenty-five centuries have passed. Many people have bloomed because of Buddha.

What did Hume create? Hume also created great argumentation, and even today books are written on Hume, and the argument continues. But it is only argumentation; not a single human being has been transformed by it.

And the irony is that the conclusion is EXACTLY the same. Buddha came to see that there is no self; that was HIS realization. He meditated. He went deeper and deeper into his being. He searched inside, each nook and corner, and he didn't find anybody there. That was his release. The ego disappeared, and with the ego all its miseries and hells.

The ego was not found, so all the problems that were created by the ego evaporated. When the source evaporated, all the by-products evaporated of their own accord. When the ego was not found, there was silence -- and that silence is beatitude, and that silence is benediction.

When the ego was not found, there was all light, radiant. The whole existence flowed in. Buddha became a void capable of containing the whole existence. He himself became transformed . And thousands of other people became transformed from his insight. Remember, it was an insight.

What happened to David Hume? He also came to the same point, but it was not an insight -- it was an outlook. Remember these two words. Literally they are significant: insight, outlook. He arrived at the same conclusion, AS an outlook. He discussed, argued, pondered, thought, contemplated, concentrated -- did everything on the problem, but never went in.

And he came to the point, exactly the same, at least in appearance the same, that there is no self. The self cannot exist. But it was not a great revolution in his life; it was just a beautiful conclusion in his treatise. But he remained the same man! Before the conclusion and after the conclusion there was NOT a bit of difference in the man. He continued to behave in the same way.

If you had insulted him he would have become angry, but not Buddha. That is the difference. He would have become angry, although he says there is no self. He would have forgotten all his philosophy. That philosophy was not his insight. He would have said, "That is philosophy -- that is aside. But when you insult me, I am insulted. And I am going to take revenge. You have to be answered!"

When Buddha was insulted, he smiled. He said, "You came a little late. You should have come ten years before, then I WAS there, very much. Had you insulted me ten years before, I would have reacted madly. You come a little late. I feel sorry for you, because now there is NOBODY to react. I hear what you are saying, but it simply passes through me. It comes in through one ear and it goes out through the other ear. There is nobody inside to catch hold of it. I am sorry. I feel compassion for you."

This is the difference between the Eastern and the Western approaches. Western philosophy is rightly called philosophy -- love of knowledge, love of wisdom. For Eastern philosophy, Hesse has coined a word which I like. He has coined a new word; he calls it PHILOSIA -- it means love of seeing. SIA means to see. That is exactly the translation of the Eastern term for philosophy, DARSHAN -- to see. It is philosia -- it is insight, it is seeing in.

Western philosophy is a search for knowledge, and Eastern philosophy or philosia is a search for KNOWING. Knowledge looks out; knowing looks in. Knowledge gathers information; knowing does not gather anything -- it simply goes in to see who is there. "Who am I?" Its inquiry is not objective, its inquiry is subjective.

Kavita, doubts will persist. They leave you only on the last rung, never before. Use them creatively. Each doubt has to be transformed into a goading. The doubt simply says you have to go a little further, a little ahead, a little higher. The doubt says, "I do not feel satisfied -- whatsoever you have now is not satisfactory. You have to go a little deeper."

Don't be stopped by the doubt; that is not the function of the doubt. And don't start arguing, and don't start thinking, because by thinking you will become a David Hume, you will remain the same person.

My effort here is to create Buddhas. And unless you become a Buddha, doubts will continue. You can solve one doubt, it will assert itself from another corner. It is the same doubt in a new shape, a new form. You repress it here, it pops up there. You will go mad. No need. Take note of the doubt, thank the doubt, and say, "Okay, so I will go a little further so you can be solved."

It is like this:
A man was sitting on a tree. His friend was sitting underneath the tree. The man on the tree was picking some fruits, and the man underneath the tree was waiting for the fruits and collecting whatsoever was falling. The man on the tree said, "I see a bullock cart coming." He was high on the top of the tree; he could see far away.

And the man underneath the tree looked to the side where the man was pointing and he said, "I doubt -- I don't see. There is no bullock cart. What are you talking about? Can you deceive me? I have eyes, I am not blind. There is no bullock cart coming! "