The ability to see - Try to see in dreams what is not available in Everyday life. For example, Atlantis, Shambhala... Look at how the pyramid of Cheops was built. Look into another galaxy, admire its inhabitants. Expand your consciousness, bringing it to the unthinkable

Ability to meet - In a dream, you have the ability to meet anyone you want. There are no restrictions. Meet Buddha, Christ, Pharaoh. Meet with any sages and scientists. Let Einstein tell you something interesting, and Leonardo da Vinci will give you

The ability to feel - Dreams will help you experience things that you have not yet experienced. Tibetan teachings contribute to the comprehension of this possibility, which helps to experience states of enlightenment, clear vision and unity with the Universe. You can experience the same. Feeling what it means

The extraordinary ability of Steve Jobs, an almost mythical figure, is often praised for his unerring instinct. They say that he had a fantastic ability to foresee what would turn out well and what would be bad, to understand what the correct answer should be, what he could see through

Yoga Dictionary

This is the first consecutive dictionary translated from English, explaining the basic concepts of all major schools raja yoga And hatha yoga.

The author, a former professor of physics at the Sindh National College of India and a lecturer at the University of Madras, is one of the eminent scholars of the ancient philosophy and psychology of India. For many years he was also a teacher of Sanskrit and worked closely with many Indian scholars and yogis. He was accepted into the Vedantist Order of Sringeri Monastery and ordained in the name of the great teacher Sri Shankaracharya of Sringeri.

On the portal, this section is constantly updated; the dictionary has already been enlarged from the original source by more than two times.

Presenting the yoga dictionary to the Western world, I would like to emphasize that the sources of all my materials and terminology were directly ancient texts in Sanskrit, in particular: the famous "Sutras" of Patanjali and the books of Shankaracharya - in terms of raja yoga (yoga of will) and jnana - yoga (yoga of knowledge); "Bhagavad Gita" - in what is connected with karma yoga (yoga of wisdom) and buddhi yoga (yoga of love); many works such as "Hatha Yoga Pradipika", "Gheranda Samhita", "Shiva Samhita" and other texts of the "Upanishads" - as the main sources of the concepts of hatha yoga, laya yoga and mantra yoga. As for bhakti yoga, it is included in other directions; however, they all intersect with each other. My explanations of terms are for the most part the result of my own experience and numerous contacts with the yogis of India.

On the example of India, where most of the directions of yoga originally arose, where it flourishes and enjoys universal respect even now, we find its closest and intricate connection with religion.

Yoga should be seen as an accurate and definite purposeful system of life (physical, emotional, mental, ethical and spiritual) and a preparation for a life more prosperous in terms of understanding, direct experience and practical use of the primary truths of life, which usually remain invisible and practically unconscious to most people , educated and unenlightened, cultured and ignorant, who are simply carried by the stream of life. Thus, details related to passive and expectant mass religiosity were excluded from the dictionary, and concepts were included that provide data and instructions that support the focus on self-education and self-realization.

Faced with the sheer number and variety of yoga-related topics covered in this dictionary, the reader may think, "So many different things to know and do!" However, the path of yoga to its goal is quite simple and straightforward. A student of yoga does not have to do many things at the same time; Just choose one or two. This choice is one of the stages of his practice and will great benefit if the student allows himself an intuitive rather than an emotional approach to the selection of his directions. This dictionary looks so complicated because it contains data and instructions common to many different schools; in practice, the three end goals of each are always the same: disclosure and knowledge, education of the mind and bringing the body into a state of sattva. Other important point is the fact that in the course of his studies, a practitioner of any direction of yoga, to his own surprise and completely unexpectedly, may find that he has acquired some qualities of the highest value, without even understanding how this happened.

Practical yoga can also be called the five-stage path to health, for it explains how a person should deal with 1) his body; 2) with their emotions; and 3) with his mind, and how he should educate and develop his 4) ethical and 5) spiritual nature so that all these five components reach their maximum development and perfect harmony with each other so that they can become a worthy cup for nectar the Spirit itself, the human Self.

Sat Chit Ananda

Moscow, Nirvana, 2002, 352 p.

ISBN 5-94726-008-5

Gautama Buddha never defined the highest experience as beauty. Beauty, in a sense, carries an echo of everyday life. You can say that this is the highest beauty, but still there is a touch of everyday life in it. And the moment you say: beauty, you descend to the level of the body, come to the flowers, to the sunny dawn. But the beauty that the mystics talk about is not the beauty of your little daily experience. This is the beauty of the whole, of which we have no idea, which we have not even dreamed of.

This book publishes Osho's conversations with students, which took place from November 22 to December 6, 1987.

Editor Swami Wit Prayas

Translated by Swami Farhad

Model of Swami Farhad "Sat Chit Ananda".

© Osho Rajneesh, India. 1988

© Translation into Russian by Soldatov A.V. 2002

Chapter 1

Anyone can be a mystic

Question: Beloved Osho, is there any other definition of supreme experience than satyam shivam sundaram - truth, divinity and beauty?

The experience of the supreme, Maneesha, is always the same. But the expression may be different. The expression depends on the mystic, but the experience does not depend on him.

The first definition I gave you is a definition for poets, aesthetes, sensitive people, for whom satyam can come, truth can only come as beauty. Truth and beauty create the highest pinnacle of divinity. Poets cannot imagine that beauty is not part of divinity. Their eyes are sensitive to beauty. Truth comes to them and is transformed, for them it becomes beauty. Beauty is God for poets, for artists, for all creative people.

Therefore, the first definition was the definition of the artistic soul. Most mystics were poets. Not by ordinary poets who describe the mundane, but by poets who describe the sacred. This poetic sensibility is important when we define higher experience as truth, divinity, beauty.

But there are also other mystics who are not poetic, because a certain talent is needed to become a poet. Everyone can become a mystic, because mysticism is our very being, the revelation of the mystical rose within. But not everyone can become a poet. Poetry is a talent, despite the fact that it is very close to mysticism. Therefore, if a poet becomes a mystic, the definition of higher experience arises as satyam shivam sundaram. The mystic may suddenly find himself filled with extraordinary beauty and begin to sing and dance spontaneously. He may not be linguistically expressive, these are no longer his difficulties.

Mira, Kabir, Farid were not poets at first. They became poets when the experience came to them. Perhaps the talent that had been dormant in them was suddenly activated when they opened the hearts of the universe; everything opened up. It is extraordinary poetry, and no poet can write it, because poems are not a composition, they are the beating of the heart, the very life that has begun to flow through them.

But there are still other people who have reached the highest. For example, Gautama Buddha or Socrates, Pythagoras, Lao Tzu. They are not poets. They didn't have that talent either at the beginning or at the end. Their definition of ultimate experience will be different.

Remember, the experience is always the same. But the expressions are different, they depend on the person.

The second most important definition, which is in the same category as satyam shivam sundaram, is cam chit ananda."Sat" means "truth", "chit" means "consciousness", "ananda" means "bliss". Certainly, in any definition, truth will be the main part that cannot be discarded. This feeling of the highest truth, as in the first definition, in the second definition, sat, remains the same, and it is the most important. But two other things arise: consciousness and bliss.

The first definition, although beautiful, will not become the experience of many, because talent is a rarity. The second definition will be experienced by many.

Meditation brings you to the highest pinnacle of consciousness, that's the chit, exactly in the middle. On one side there will be truth, on the other side there will be bliss. And as you meditate, you discover that, on the one hand, the truth is revealed to you, and on the other hand, bliss pours out all its treasures to you.

The second definition is just as important as the first, but you can see the difference: there is no place for sundaram, beauty; a person has no sense of beauty, he is not so sensitive. But every man can become perfectly alert and conscious, great bliss can flow over him, and he has the inevitable feeling that he has come home. It is truth.

In Sanskrit, unlike English, words can be joined together. There is such an approach in Sanskrit, and perhaps this approach comes from the enlightened ones. So many people have become enlightened on this earth. They left their contribution to Sanskrit, the language. They will not say sat chit ananda as I have explained it to you. I divided one word into three just to explain it to you, because on English language it's hard to find a single word to explain it. You cannot combine truth, consciousness and bliss in English in a single word. In Sanskrit, all three words are joined together: sat chit ananda. All three words are combined into one. There is sat, and chit, and ananda. But they are not separate, there is no gap - satchidananda.

It is important to remember that there is only one experience, it is orgasmic, it is a universal experience. Sat chit ananda does not come to us in parts. It comes to us as a totality, and that totality is satchidananda. To pay attention to this unity, that sat cannot exist without chit, and chit cannot exist without sat, chit cannot exist without ananda, all this is connected: satchidananda.

It's not just a matter of language. Deep inside is an experience that connects everything. In fact, there is no way you can separate them: this is truth, this is bliss, and this is consciousness. Suddenly they are all inside you. In other words, truth is consciousness and bliss, and vice versa. Bliss is consciousness and truth.

The division I made was just for you to understand. Now I want you to realize that the experience itself is the same. He carries the fragrance of bliss, the light of consciousness, the revelation of truth, all at the same time and together. They are not steps that lead from one to another. And it is impossible to drop one thing and experience something else. It is an inner unity, an organic unity. This is also a very beautiful definition, and it includes more mysticism than the first definition.

Chapter 28

Existence needs you

Question: Beloved Osho, what is transcendental?

Virgo Paro, the moment you witness yourself, you will see the three layers of existence within you. One layer is outer, everyone can watch it. It is objective, material, it is your body.

The second layer lies outside your mind. These are your thoughts, dreams, expectations, dreams. Only you can see them, no one else can see them from the outside. They are not objective, they are subjective, but they exist. They live their lives, you cannot deny their existence. They are definitely not as solid as your physical body, but you can observe them, they guide your life, they make up your hopes, your projections, your expectations.

The first layer is called objective and the second layer is called subjective. But beyond both layers lies a witness who can observe the body and the mind, the material and the immaterial.

This witness, this consciousness, this awareness is above both. They are neither material nor immaterial, because they are higher. And you can't get over it. You cannot witness this. You have come to the end, you are coming to the very edge of existence. This awareness is called transcendence because it transcends the duality of the mind body. And to be in its center means to come home, because there is no way higher. Here is the end of the road.

Suddenly you find everything perfect. Nothing is missing, nothing needs to be improved, perfected, everything is as it should be. And your feelings - everything is as it should be, and a feeling of great gratitude arises. The perfection of existence fills you with extraordinary joy - because you are part of a perfect existence, you are an invited guest, you are welcome here, the whole existence needs you. If you weren't here, he would miss you. There would be empty space. Nobody else can take your place. It gives you individuality and dignity, great bliss. For the first time you are relaxed in existence, with the trees, with the stars, with the ocean. The whole becomes your home. This is transcendental.

It is called transcendental because it transcends duality and brings you into a state of oneness. This is the highest manifestation of meditative consciousness.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi calls his meditation Transcendental Meditation. This is an unnecessary repetition of words: any meditation is transcendental. The word "meditation" is sufficient, or the word "transcendental" is sufficient, because both mean the same thing. Meditation brings you to the transcendental state, and the transcendental state is nothing but the highest flowering of your meditation. What he calls Transcendental Meditation is not transcendental or meditation, but simply the chanting of a particular name.

You can chant your name. It gives you a certain relaxation. The great English poet Tennyson lived long before Maharishi Mahesh, he discovered this meditation himself. He had to sleep in a room separate from his parents - they were rich people. And they could provide each child with a separate room. But he was still so small, and the nights were dark, and he was afraid. This is especially characteristic of England; it seems to be the most haunted country in the entire world.

It's strange, but nowhere else in the world can you find so many ghosts, so many people who are concerned with ghosts. So, naturally, the little child, Tennyson, was very much worried when evening came and the lights went out. He couldn't hold on to anything, and then he came up with this. He constantly repeated his name: "Tennyson, Tennyson, Tennyson, Tennyson" - just to avoid all the spirits that infested the place: they hid in every corner of the room. He was so forgotten in his name that it protected him from them from all sides. And there was not even a small hole through which the spirits could slip through.

He discovered, strangely by chance, what Maharishi Mahesh later called Transcendental Meditation. He became completely silent, peaceful and fell into a deep sleep. And he woke up with the same words: "Tennyson, Tennyson, Tennyson", with which he fell asleep.

This needs to be understood. Whatever you fall asleep with, the last thing you remember before going to sleep, will be the first thing you remember after you wake up when you open your eyes. Psychologically, of course, you weren't aware of it, but you kept repeating the same thing all night long.

If Tennyson repeated his own name as he fell asleep, the sleep would gradually become deeper and deeper, until "Tennyson" sounded like a distant echo, and he unconsciously forgot all about it. But this word sounded in the subconscious, like an undercurrent. That is why in the morning the first thing he remembered was his own name.

You can try to do the same. Whatever you fall asleep with will flow within you, and you will face the same thing when you wake up in the morning. This means that all night long he repeated consciously, then unconsciously, the same name. Naturally, he could not dream. He couldn't imagine anything else. His sleep became a very quiet, deep, dreamless sleep that Patanjali called sushupti. Modern psychology is still not aware of this.

Patanjali is the man who first wrote the entire science of yoga. Very rarely can it happen that one single person created the whole science entirely. Now it is five thousand years old, but in these five thousand years nothing has been added to the science of yoga. It remains exactly the same. And it seems to me that in the future it cannot be that it will change. A single genius created all this science, leaving nothing to add to it. Patanjali calls this state sushupti, dreamless sleep. This is a wonderful state, very healthy, nutritious, refreshing.

But this is not meditation. It's just a kind of hypnotic dream. By repeating your own name, you create a kind of boredom. Obviously, if you keep repeating "Tennyson, Tennyson," how long can you do this without feeling bored? Soon you will start to feel bored, and boredom is a very good state that comes during sleep. The mind finds a way to get rid of boredom: it goes to sleep. That's why in every church you can see so many sleeping people; during the Sunday sermon, almost everyone sleeps.

I heard about one priest who was very famous and his parish was very large. There was no other such boring preacher. He tired people so much that even those who suffered from insomnia fell asleep sweetly. They couldn't sleep all night, even with sleeping pills, but this preacher was really a genius. His voice was so tiring, what he said, he repeated so many times that people could hear his sermon even during sleep. He was also happy; the whole church was sleeping, it was so quiet.

He only knew three sermons, no more needed. No one was listening to him, so no one knew exactly what kind of sermon he was giving today. Everyone said that he had certain hypnotic abilities.

In front of him sat an old man, he was the richest man in the city. He snored, but that was not the difficulty. The most unpleasant thing was that because of his snoring, the others could not sleep. The preacher was very worried about this, because it undermined his authority, many people stopped going because of him. They only came to get a good night's sleep on Sunday mornings. This dream was so refreshing, quiet, calm and sweet. This was enough for the whole week. And he had to find a way, and he found it. This old man came all the time with his grandson, a little boy who was very quick. In fact, among all those present, only he usually did not sleep.

The priest took the boy aside and said, “Listen, I'll give you a quarter of a dollar if you keep your grandfather awake. When you see him snoring, wake him up right away by pushing him. Don't let him sleep. And I'll give you a quarter of a dollar every week." The boy replied: “Agreed!”

The next week, the old man could not understand what had happened to his grandson. He always slept next to him. But now, as soon as he began to snore, his grandson immediately began to wake him up.

He asked as they left the church, “What kind of fly bit you? Why don't you let me sleep?"

He replied: “The priest gives me a quarter of a dollar to keep you awake!”

The old man said: “Why didn’t you tell me before? I would give you half a dollar, if only you would let me sleep in peace!” The granddaughter shouted: “Agreed!”

The next week the preacher watched him. Several times he made signs to the child, hinted to him in all sorts of ways, but the child continued to sit with a smile on his lips and did not pay any attention to the priest!

The priest thought, “What happened? Has he completely forgotten? When everyone was asleep, he even showed him a quarter of a dollar. The child shook his head. It was so strange. After the meeting, the priest approached the child and said, “What happened?”

He replied, “My grandfather is giving me half a dollar to let him sleep in peace!”

The priest said, “Half a dollar? I'll give you one dollar, but don't let that old man sleep!"

The boy replied: “Agreed!”

But the priest thought, “I cannot compete with this man because he is very rich. And I'm a poor priest." He said to the boy, “Listen. I am a poor priest, and I cannot give more than this.”

The boy replied, “It all depends on my grandfather. If he says that he will give me two dollars ... you understand, business is business!”

That is what happened in the end. Two dollars. And the boy stopped waking him up again.

In the end, the priest had to make a remark to him: “Let's clarify the situation. It doesn't bother me that you sleep. My difficulty is that because you snore, many people cannot sleep and they complain. My parish is the largest in the city, because all people have the opportunity to enjoy a wonderful life-giving sleep with me. Any boredom helps in this.

Now they've created machines that just make the sound of the ocean: waves hitting rocks, crashing waves, and other sounds. To do this, you just need to plug the plug into the socket, and you can hear the sound of the waves. This helps a lot. They fall asleep. It makes them so tired.

What Maharishi Mahesh Yogi teaches us is dreamless sleep. This is not meditation. Meditation is an awakening, not a dream. I have nothing against it, but he just shouldn't call it transcendental meditation. It's just a hypnotic dream. He uses wrong names and exploits people by calling everything wrong names. People want meditation. This is pure slander.

In the East we have known for centuries that chanting is good dream and sleep is good for health. Therefore, there is nothing wrong with it. Fifteen minutes in the morning and ten in the evening. If you can do it in this mode, your health will be better. You will feel better, so there is nothing wrong with that. But this is not meditation. Meditation is just the opposite. This is an awakening. It is full awareness in the body, in the mind. And you have to be just observant. You don't have to repeat anything, because repetition means you have become identified with the thought process.

Chanting is also a process. The repetition of mantras, the names of God - Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian - does not matter. You can just count from one to a hundred and then back, in reverse order. Up and down. Just climb all the way up the ladder. If you do this four or five times, you will fall asleep. But all night long you have to do it: climb, descend, climb, descend. It can even tire you out, so that in the morning you may feel that something is going wrong, you feel dizzy. The first thing you find in the morning is that you are going down and up. This went on all night. Don't choose these things.

For Tennyson, this was normal, he had been doing this all his life. In his autobiography, he writes: “I don't know what the secret is. I just grabbed it in a moment of fear. But I found it so soothing and relaxing and put me to such a deep sleep that I have enjoyed it all my life. When I had time, I repeated my own name. I was just sitting on the bus, on the train, and I had nothing to do. I just closed my eyes and kept repeating the name. It brought me so much peace, so much silence. But it was a silence that is like a dream, a calm that is like a dream. The moment it happens you may not even be aware of it; you become aware only after waking up. You will find that you have been in silence. And only the remnants of this silence remain, some fragrance after you wake up. But you have passed through this garden without awareness, and you can still smell the roses even after you wake up.

I fully support Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. But I totally disagree that he uses the name of meditation to exploit people who don't know what it is. He replaces meditation with something quite cheap. Meditation is always, most importantly, awakening, witnessing, observation, consciousness. But never unconsciousness. It's never deep sleep. The moment you become alert, you can see your body, your mind, and you can feel yourself. And you can go beyond your false self, but you cannot go beyond your true self. You cannot go above and beyond. You cannot jump above that. This is not a dress you can jump out of.

It's you yourself.

This is your essence.

This essence is transcendental.

But all religions have created their own ideas about meditation. Apart from Gautama Buddha, no other religions have been able to discover the exact meaning of meditation. Therefore, he remains a column of light for all those who seek. All other religions have fallen into the trap of chanting prayers, mantras, rituals. The only man in the history of evolution stands alone on Everest and he denies everything but witnessing. It means vipassana. It is the art of being a witness in all your actions, physical and mental.

And as you watch, they will slow down. Your body will relax more and more, tension will leave you, your mind will slow down and lose thought. And when the body is completely silent and the mind is left without thoughts, then your whole being will be filled with a light that you have never seen before. This is not an ordinary light that needs fuel. It is the radiation of your being. And from now on, your journey will begin in a new way. At every step, a new mystery will open before you. You will become more and more part of a wonderful existence.

Existence is a mystery. This is not something you should decide. It is not a difficulty, it is not a riddle, and nothing needs to be solved. Philosophy is not needed to remove the veil of this mystery. You can experience it, you can enjoy it, you can dance, you can live it, but you cannot know it.

The young mother was skeptical about the new toy: “Is it too difficult for the child?” she asked.

“This is the latest novelty,” the saleswoman replied, “and it is made in a special way in order to help the child survive in today's world. No matter how the child tries to connect the blocks, everything will be wrong.

This little anecdote is true about existence. However you try to explain this existence, your explanation will be wrong. Those who know about it don't even try to do it. They only describe its beauty, bliss, truth and majesty. They only give you a hint by which they can make you thirsty to help you find it.

And after one day you enter it, you completely forget about what it is. If you enjoy it so much, what difference does it make to you, what is it like? And what will you do with these explanations? And in any case, all your explanations will be erroneous. The whole existence is only an experience without explanation. This is its transcendence. It transcends all understanding, all knowledge, all explanations, all philosophy. But you can experience it. You can become one with it. It is always ready to devour you. Just like the ocean is ready to swallow a dewdrop. Existence is always waiting and wanting, welcoming you. You just need to learn and be a little courageous, you need a little courage.

One jump - and you will forever dwell in this mystery. You yourself will become a mystery. Every mystic is a mystery. He became one with the supreme mystery. Mysticism is not a religion, because it has no theology, no philosophy, no doctrine, no faith, no cult. He doesn't explain anything. He just shows you the way to move into the inexpressible. He opens doors to the unknown for you and pushes you.

There is a beautiful story about the Great Wall of China. This must be history, because no one has found this place so far. But for almost three hundred years it has been said that there is a special place in this wall. This wall stretches for thousands of miles and is so wide that a car can drive over it. This is one of the wonders of the world. Millions of people died while building it. It took hundreds of years to build it. It was practically a mountain for protection from aggressors.

It is said that in this wall there is such a place: if you put a ladder in this place and climb on the wall, you will laugh; after you climb up, you will laugh out loud, and you will want to jump to the other side; there is a deep well, and after you jump from there, even your remains cannot be found, it is so high. Man is finished. But before you jump, you will laugh out loud, probably in a way that you have never laughed before. Your whole body will laugh. It was the most mysterious place on this wall. Many said that they saw people climbing the wall at this place, laughing and jumping. Nobody knows why they laughed.

Many have tried. They were determined not to laugh, no matter what happened; and, even if they laugh, do not jump, but whoever comes to this place, even with full determination, suddenly forgets all determination and starts laughing out loud, and jumps. No one understood why this was happening, and no one came back to explain it to you.

I don't think there is such a dot on the Chinese Wall, but maybe it's just a mystical myth. Something similar happens when you reach and the door opens. You laugh and jump properly.

But the secret remains a secret. And therein lies the beauty of the mystery. She does not cheat existence. Existence likes mysteries, they have a certain romance. They are not known to existence. This is a great challenge, a great adventure for all those who have a strong enough soul to go on a pilgrimage.

Mysticism is transcendence.

Question: Beloved Osho, when the old road ends and the new path is not yet visible... When the past no longer makes sense, and the new dawn is still far away... When everything seems old and futile, but there is no new yet... When I know that I am not something, but that I am, I do not yet know; when there is no hope, and there is not even hope for a new hope... Beloved master, can we consider that this is a dark night of the soul? Will I see the dawn?

Sarjano, it seems to me that you have come to this part of the Chinese Wall. We are all looking for that wall. Just have a good laugh and jump. The past is over and it's meaningless. You have understood what is false, so the question of clinging does not arise. You have nothing to lose. Why not laugh and jump?

It can never happen the way you ask. You remain intelligent. You say there is no more darkness, but there is no light yet. What should I do? The nature of things is such that this cannot be. The moment you know what is false is false, instantly you will know what is true. These two things do not happen separately. As soon as you understand what is false, you will instantly know what is true. How can you understand that false is false if you don't understand what is true? Without this understanding of what is true, you cannot understand what is false.

So your question may look very pressing, but it's not. I'll read the question so you can judge for yourself.

"When the old road ends and the new path is not yet visible..." But then what do you see? That's what I'm talking about: laugh and jump. The old road has ended, but you cannot see the new one. Definitely, there must be a gorge. Just say, "Oops!" And jump. It doesn't need an answer, it just takes a little courage. But I tell you: it is not in the very nature of things. When the old road ends, the new one begins. The end of the old road is the beginning of the new. These are not two separate roads. There is no gap between them.

If there was a gap, it would be impossible to find a new road, because something would be needed to connect the old road with the new one. What would you call it? Old or new? Bridge, road? Do you need anything to connect it? What would you call it? If you call it old when you say the old is over, it is a contradiction because it has not ended yet. If you call it new, you have already found it, you are moving on it. No, there is no gap between them. There are no gaps in existence, everything lasts.

Do you know when you become young and when your childhood ends? Can you remember the day, hours, minutes, seconds? Everything continues. Do you know the day when you can be considered old? Can you mark it on your calendar? “Today I got old! Youth is over. Now old age begins. You can never know. Everything continues. Yes. One day you will realize that now you have become old men. But that is not the moment you become old. You don't become old in a single moment. This is a process. It goes on so slowly, without noise.

If you see that the old roads have come to an end and the new road is not yet visible, I cannot decide. If you see that the old road has ended, this means the beginning of a new road. Move on it.

"When the past is meaningless, and a new dawn has not yet arrived!" This is not happening. You are asking a very intelligent question. But existence does not have to conform to your intellectual concoctions. Existence develops in its own way. You must adapt to it. If the past is meaningless, you have arrived at the new. Dawn has come. The birds must have begun to sing, the flowers must have begun to open, the sun must be rising.

Have you ever seen the gap between night and day? When the day comes to an end and the night begins instantly. There is no gap at all. If there was a gap, it would be extraordinarily difficult to jump over. The day is over, you are standing here, and the night has not yet begun. Now how to jump? Where to go? Nature leaves nothing imperfect.

You say: “When everything looks old and vain, and the new has not yet grown”... But how can the old and vain look like? What will you compare it to? When you say that everything looks meaningless, it means that you have a certain understanding of the meaning. You know what intelligence is. Only in comparison with meaning can you say that something looks meaningless.

Only in comparison with life can death exist. If you don't know anything about life, you cannot understand death. These categories are linked together. These are two sides of the same coin.

But you keep going on and on and on... When I know that I am not something, but that I am, I do not yet know; when there is no hope, and there is not even hope for a new hope... Beloved master, can we consider that this is a dark night of the soul? Will I see the dawn? You're overthinking everything. The dark night of the soul can only be experienced by great mystics. This, Sargiano, is not spaghetti! The dark night of the soul means that you have approached the dawn. The dark night of the soul means a holiday, because the dawn is not far away. It has to come, in fact, it has already come. It is inseparable from the dark night.

But you have a habit, Sarjano, of complaining. The whole question is nothing but continuous moaning, complaints. You complain that you did everything that needed to be done. The old is over, the false is discarded, the dark night of the soul has come, but nothing has happened. You remind me of Moses.

Moses stood facing the Red Sea. Behind him in the distance was a cloud from the army raised by the army of the pharaoh, who hurried after him in pursuit. Suddenly, with a deafening roar, the water parted and opened the way for escape.

Moses looked ahead at the wet road... there were walls of water on both sides. He raised his face to the sky and muttered, "Tell me, God, why do I always have to take the first risk?"

Such a miracle happens, and he is not even going to thank God. He complains about why it always happens that he has to go first.

If everything you say really happens, be grateful. If the old is over, you will see the new. If everything has become meaningless, you will find the true meaning. If the dark night of the soul has come, dance, rejoice, and the dawn is not far away.

But always be grateful.

Prince Edward, the youngest son of the Queen of England, met Gaddafi's daughter at a party and fell in love with her. Edward told his mother that they wanted to get married, and this puzzled the queen. On the one hand, she was pleased to hear this, because it would destroy all rumors that the prince is a homosexual, but, on the other hand, if they had an alliance with Libya, it would anger Ronald Reagan. But her maternal instincts took over, and she agreed to this marriage. But she nevertheless wanted to make sure of the bride's motives, and so the queen instructed James Bond to keep an eye on her.

The next morning, Bond came with a report to the queen.

"What happened, zero zero seven?" the queen asked.

“You see,” Bond said, “at first she told him: “I offer you my honor.” Then he told her: “I like your proposal.”

"What happened next?"

“Then he was on top of her, on the side, underneath, under her, on top of her again, and it went on like that all night!”

What you need, Sarjano, is to have a good laugh and just jump. If the old road ends, jump. You will be on a new road. Definitely you can't be on the old road. If everything becomes meaningless, that is a great freedom. This means the very attempt to find the meaning of existence, it is completely futile. Life has meaning, but not meaning. Meaning is a trap of the mind. Importance is the great love of the heart.

Sarjano, you are potentially not a man of the head. You are potentially a man of the heart. But you got it all wrong. You have not realized the simple fact that you are not a man of logic, but of love. Drop all this intellectual nonsense. Go deeper into your heart and you can see a new light, a new path, a new dawn. They are there, but your eyes are closed. The head is blind. Only the heart says yes.

But the strange thing is that practically every culture of the world, every society, every civilization that has so far claimed to exist, all say that love is blind, without exception. But I would like you to be perfectly clear in this regard.

Only love can say yes.

Logic is blind.

But all these societies wanted you to get stuck in the head and forget about the heart, because the heart is not much valued in the world. It needs a head, cunning, mind, reason. Love is not needed in the world we have created. That is why he is so disgusting and unhappy. Without love, a person cannot be free from unhappiness, disappointment and suffering. He is doomed to suffer. Only love saves us, sets us free.

Just go down the stairs a little to the heart. The heart is exactly in the middle between the head and your being. And after you get down in the heart, you will have a completely different vision of things. And then I can tell you how to take the next step. The path from the heart to being is very relaxed, quiet, it is a calm journey without obstacles. But from the head there is no direct path to being.

Society has committed a great crime against every person. It has completely cut off your heart. It is a strategy to prevent you from reaching your being. You can only reach being through the heart. But the heart has been ignored by education, by religion, by everyone. He was driven into the dark distances.

So you have remained suspended in the head and you cannot get anywhere. You can only ask questions, train your mind, but it is all in vain. Instead of asking questions, you should start moving towards the heart. This is true rebellion, love that has rebelled against logic. Then the path from love to being is very simple, full of joy. This is a path through a garden full of roses.

When I look at your question, all I see is that you are not an intellectual, you should not be a man of the head. You are not a man of the head. I've seen tears in your eyes, I've seen you laugh, and I know you're in the wrong place. I see within you attempts to refresh a heart that has been suppressed for so long, and I see the desire to throw off your head; it should not affect your destiny. Your destiny is to realize your being. And being can be realized only through the heart. And until you learn the art of love, until you are sensitive and creative enough, until you forget the Aristotelian logic, you will never reach your being. And your being is the place where sat chit ananda lives: truth, consciousness, bliss. A little effort to go down from head to heart is all it takes to find yourself. Because we have all been taught from the very beginning to be in the heart. The modern mind, especially the Western one, finds it very difficult for him to understand that one can achieve something without effort. You need to make some effort - so he thinks. And the reason for this difficulty is that modern man is head-oriented, while the people who talked about the effortless path were heart-oriented. The situation has changed.

That is why it is difficult for modern man to understand the mysticism of the East. There is a certain gap. The mystics of the East speak the language of the heart and you listen in the language of the head, and there is no connection between the head and the heart.

Moving from head to heart is the first step on the path to true meditation. You don't need to take the second step. It happens on its own. There are only two steps. One you must do. This is a step from the head to the heart. And another step happens spontaneously. You just relax and see how you slide deeper and deeper. And one day suddenly you achieve everything. The whole belongs to you. The whole secret belongs to you.

Question: Beloved Osho, when I am near you, I feel at home; I feel like I'm on fertile ground. When I leave for the West, I think: “When will I be with Osho again?” And often because of this, I find it difficult to meditate. Osho, can one really grow and flourish in the rough surroundings of the West?

Prema Chando, of course, it is difficult to grow into meditation in the modern environment of the West. But it's not impossible. It takes a certain amount of courage because the whole environment is against meditation. Everything is mind-oriented, and meditation is a state of no-mind. All education, culture, society, people - they all believe that there is nothing higher than the mind. The mind is their whole world.

Meditation simply denies the mind and wants to go beyond it. So I can understand: it's difficult. But even in the West you can find quiet moments when society can no longer interfere. This is your own room, right in the middle of the night when everyone is asleep. When the noise of the city has died down, you can find the East right in your room. When you have some time at the end of the week, during vacations, on holidays, you can go to a secluded place, in the forest, for example. Don't go where everyone goes, just avoid those places. And you can find the right place. The West is not as populated as the East: it is very difficult to find a place where there are no people.

I heard a story about the first astronaut who went to the moon. When he landed on the moon, he saw Indians smoking bidis. He said, “Oh my God, how did you do it? You don't have enough advanced technology, especially space technology, you don't have anything at all. How did you manage to fly here, and not alone, but as a whole group?”

They said, “It's very simple, no technology is needed. We just stood on each other's shoulders, that's all. We eventually reached the moon."

The East is so crowded and it is very difficult to find a free place there. But the West is not so overpopulated. You can find quiet recesses here that have not yet been corrupted by a mind-oriented society. Trees don't get university education, and the mountains haven't heard of the Vatican. Just sit in a little boat in the ocean and you are out of the West. You do not need to go far for this, you just need to go to the river or to the sea. Just stop your boat there and the sunrise will be as fresh as ever. West and East - it doesn't matter. And the starry night from above will be as beautiful and pure as it has always been in eternity.

So you need to be a little more alert to find those moments, the space where you can relax, meditate. I I do not advise you to meditate while sitting on the streets of London. This is possible only when you have known meditation and have walked the path more than once, and you no longer care whether you meditate on the streets of London, New York, or anywhere else; anywhere you can slip deep inside yourself. And your inner being does not belong to the West or the East, it transcends all duality.

But the difficulty is definitely there, and the only way to solve it is this: when you can come here, come. And then completely forget about the West and don't waste your time on anything else. Put all your energy into meditation. And after one day you are rooted in your being, after you know inner path whatever you are, you can get to the center without difficulty. Even when you are dying, it will not be difficult for you to do so. You can be sick, there is no difference.

A strange incident happened to a great English philosopher. His name was Loud. He always opposed Gurdjieff. And in today's world, Gurdjieff is the only person who is very sincere, who absorbed the message of inner crystallization, taking it from the East to the West.

Many others turned to the West, most of them just performed tricks, they came to the West just to make money. Now all over the West there are Indian monks, Japanese monks, Tibetan monks but they are not real. All they want is to take advantage of the West's interest in the East.

Because the West has developed the mind so much, you cannot match it intellectually. You cannot conquer it. But the West has completely forgotten about inner world, so much so that even idiots can exploit him, say that they can show the way. The West has become one-sided, limited. The intellect has developed very strongly, but the heart has remained small, unprepared, uneducated. Therefore, when someone comes and brings the message of the heart, the West cannot understand whether this person is sincere or just a pretender.

As far as I know, no one, except Gurdjieff, tried to bring oriental method self-awareness to the West. But people like Lode, despite the fact that he is a great philosopher and has written many beautiful books, they laugh when they hear the name of Gurdjieff. They say, “This man is just a liar, an upstart. It has nothing inside, no center. What is crystallization? He just uses these words and deceives people.”

But Lode fell ill, and death drew near to him; the doctors said, “You won’t live more than six weeks. So do whatever you want to do before you die!” And in that moment he realized: “Perhaps there is something inside. I have denied the interior from an intellectual point of view, I don't really know about it. And I laughed at Gurdjieff, but my laughter was insensitive. I didn’t understand him at all, I never went to him, and he taught so close, in London.”

Finally he asked a friend, “Can you bring me Gurdjieff? At the very least, I want to ask his forgiveness for not understanding his message. I criticized him without understanding."

A friend brought Gurdjieff to him, and Gurdjieff sat next to him. Lowd said, “Please forgive me. I may no longer have the opportunity to see you again because my death is drawing near.”

Gurdjieff said, “Forget it. It was death that inspired me to turn to you. It was death that made you reevaluate your life and your frame of mind. That's good, there's still plenty of time. Six weeks is enough. Even six minutes is enough. For a man of such talent as yours, even six seconds is enough. Just close your eyes and watch your mind. Don't do anything else, just watch."

When death approaches, you are ready to do anything. If death had not been so close, Lode would have argued, he would have said that, apart from the mind, there is no one who could watch. But in this situation, it was better to do as this person advises, it was not so difficult. And he was amazed when he began to watch his mind. He forgot about Gurdjieff, forgot about death, forgot all his thoughts, and an unusual silence also reigned in the surrounding space. Three hours have passed.

When Gurdjieff woke him up, he said to him: "I am extremely glad, because I saw how your face became deeply calm, your eyes became motionless." From the outside one can observe the eyelids, one can see whether the eyes move or not. If there are thoughts, dreams or anything else inside, your eyes will move. If thoughts stop, if dreams stop, if there is nothing on the screen of the mind, the eyes will stop moving. So Gurdjieff watched, he sat there, next to him, his eyes stopped moving, his body relaxed, as if the fear of death was unknown to him, and along with the coming of inner experience, his expression began to change. And as the witness began to grow, there was a certain grandeur, a certain beauty, on the face.

Gurdjieff said, “You did it. These six weeks will be enough for you. Keep up the good work. You have twenty-four hours every day. While you are awake, while you are lying down, you have been told to rest, and that is very good. You can take advantage of this opportunity that death has given you. And you will die crystallized. You are intelligent enough to understand this situation before death comes, you must know something that will bring you immortality.

Laud's eyes filled with tears of gratitude. He didn't say a single word, but those tears showed everything: his gratitude, his affection. And these six weeks became the most important in his life. The last thing he said to his friends was this: "I could never even imagine that it was Gurdjieff who would help me on my journey, help me to know something immortal and eternal."

So wherever you are, just keep meditating. It is simply a matter of the manifestation of the mind. You need to find a quiet corner, a quiet space. Sometimes go to the forest, to the ocean, to the mountains and just meditate. The West cannot stop you. If you can't come here, find something there. But when you come here, devote yourself completely to meditation. All I would like is to make you so centered that you know the way. Familiarize yourself with this method, so that even in the crowds on the busy streets of Western cities, you can dive inside. Nobody can stop you.

One day while doing a bathroom renovation, Gimi Golberg was fixing a toilet butt, but he forgot to tell Becky about it. So when she went into the toilet and sat on her asshole, she fell into it but couldn't get up from it, and she sat there sobbing until Gimi came and helped her up. He helped her into bed and laid her face down.

He called the family doctor, but did not tell him what happened, but explained to him on the phone that Becky herself could not come to his office.

Reluctantly, the doctor agreed to drop in on their way home. When the doctor appeared, Gimi took him to the bedroom, Becky had to get on her hands and knees in order to explain what was wrong with her.

“Do you understand, doctor,” Gimi said, “what would you say about this?”

Scratching his chin, the doctor replied: “The picture is good, but the frame is cheap!”

Therefore, the West enjoys all sorts of stupid things that happen around. There are so many idiots in the West. Forty-three percent of the people in America believe in flying saucers. Never before had there been such a crowd of idiots in the world. Millions of people believe in crystal magic. It seems that humanity is on the verge of insanity. So enjoy. When you are in the West, you enjoy all kinds of stupid things going on around you. You call it the new age.

While you are here, meditate to get in touch with yourself. This is the only religion that exists. Everything else is just exploitation of people who have lost themselves, their lives, forgotten about their existence. They have become so malleable because of this.

There are many who are engaged in all kinds of nonsense, and it seems that soon there will be no true religion left in the world. All these liars and hypocrites simply destroy the possibility of a true movement. So while you are here, enjoy all that is called true spirituality. Everything is quite clear here.

Other than witnessing, I don't teach anything else. So just be a witness to your mind and a state of meditation will come to you. And after you fall into harmony with your being, you will know the way, and you will know how. And then it doesn't matter where you are. Alone in the crowd, in the silence of the forest or among worldly noise - everything will be equally suitable. You can just close your eyes and disappear inside.

Chapter 17 Returning Dreams to Those Who Need Them Shamans and soothsayers who are called to know the inner workings of the soul… should be considered healers who are above the general laws of nature… They turn to their imagination for advice. Joseph-Francois Lafito,