Osho - Dimensions Beyond the Known
Chapter 6
Question 1
You have explained to us about the three gunas, the three basic forces of life, of tamas, the cause of inactivity, inertia and indolence, rajas, the cause of activity or passion, and sattwa, the cause of serenity, calmness and knowledge. You have also explained to us that they existed in equal measure in the personalities of Lao Tzu, Jesus, Mahavira and Krishna. In this connection, it is remembered that you were a great revolutionary in the past. In the social, economic, political and religious spheres you had created much excitement and controversy throughout the country.
From this it appeared that you were, like Jesus, activity-oriented or predominantly activity conscious. But of late, since the end of 1970, you have been slowly withdrawing yourself, and we have a feeling that you have now become the epitome of serenity. Is it possible to have such a transformation?
Let us take certain things into consideration in order to understand this. Firstly, Buddha, Mahavira, Mohammed and Jesus used only one of the tree gunas as a medium of their expression. Rajas was the predominant medium of expression for Jesus and Mohammed. Tamas was the predominant quality of Lao Tzu and Raman Maharshi. But Krishna made use of all the three qualities simultaneously as his medium for expression.
There is one more possibility, and I have been making use of it in my own experiments. All the three qualities have been used by me not simultaneously, but one after the other. In my opinion this is the most scientific way of doing it, and that is why I have chosen this way.
All the three gunas are present in all individuals. Because of the mixture of these three gunas in everyone, body and mind take a particular formation. Just as a triangle cannot be made without the use of three lines, there can be no personality without the presence of these three gunas. Even if one of three gunas is missing, the personality will disintegrate.
No matter how predominant the sattwic trait may be in a person, the other two will also have to be there, though they may remain hidden or dormant. The other two qualities will have to be present, and their shadow will continuously fall on the predominant sattwic guna. What is meant is that the other two qualities are secondary or subordinate. Even when one quality is predominant, the other two qualities still have to be there.
Krishna has used all the three gunas simultaneously, and they are present in him like the three proportionate lines of an equilateral triangle. Just as the equilateral triangle has three lines of equal length, in the personality of Krishna all the three gunas are present and united in equal measure.
Because of this it became very difficult to understand Krishna. It is very easy to understand a person with one predominant quality. In such a person the other two qualities are dormant, and the personality of such a person shows consistency.
But you cannot find in the personality of Krishna the consistency which you can find in the personality of Lao Tzu. The underlying note which is in one word of Lao Tzu is similar to that which is in all his words. In the statements of Buddha also there is close consistency. Buddha said, "Just as the taste of sea water is salty everywhere, in the same way, from wheresoever you analyze my teachings, you will find the same consistent quality."
Jesus and Mohammed also have only one predominant quality. But in Krishna you can find multidimensional qualities manifested. The three gunas at least are positively there, but as hundreds of intermixtures are possible among these three gunas, a variety of new intermixtures of them are manifested in Krishna. That is why Krishna has a multidimensional personality. No person can love Krishna as a whole. One will have to be selective. One will tend to exaggerate and emphasize whatsoever one likes in Krishna, and whatsoever is not liked will be deleted. Therefore, up to now all the definitions of Krishna have been made by people who have been selective. Neither Shankara nor Ramanuja nor Nimbark nor Vallabhacharya nor Tilak nor Gandhi nor Aurobindo have accepted Krishna as a whole. They have cut out those parts of Krishna's life which have appeared inconsistent and contradictory to them.
For example, Gandhiji, who attaches a great value to nonviolence, would find it difficult to explain Krishna when he is encouraging and inciting Arjuna to violence. Also, Gandhiji considers truth as supreme while Krishna is even capable of telling a lie. This is beyond the understanding of Gandhiji.
Gandhiji will never accept that a person like Krishna can deceive. If Krishna can do this, then Krishna will no longer remain worthy of worship for Gandhiji.
There is only one way out of this embarrassment, and that is to explain somehow that Krishna has not really done such things. It is only a story, just symbolic. The battle of the Mahabharat was never actually fought according to Gandhiji. For him, the Kauravas and Pandavas are not really human enemies who are battling, but they are only symbolic of the eternal fight between virtue and vice.
The Mahabharat is only a story - a parable for him. Gandhiji is not afraid of fighting a vice, but he is afraid of hitting a villain. Vice alone can be cut and destroyed for him.
But if it was only a question of destroying or killing vice, Arjuna too would have had no problem. But Arjuna had to kill wicked villainous people. The question of whether it was right for him to kill or not arose only because the people who had arrayed themselves against Arjuna were his own relatives and elders. He had a feeling of attachment and "my-ness" in relation to them, and it seemed to him that the world would have been incomplete, absurd and unenjoyable for him without them.
Krishna's personality is bound to be inconsistent, because all the three gunas are existing simultaneously in him. In me also there will be inconsistency, but not so much as is in Krishna.
There is another possibility which I have utilized in my own experiments. All three gunas are present in every individual, and a personality can be complete and total only when all three are utilized.
None of the gunas need be suppressed. Neither is Krishna in favor of suppression nor am I in favor of suppression. Whatsoever is there in an individual must be utilized creatively.
In my own experiments I chose to express one guna at a time - only one in a single time period.
First I chose tamas, because this principle is in the basic foundation of everyone. When a child is growing in the mother's womb for nine months, it is living in this guna. The child is in total darkness; there is no activity. It is the most inactive state possible. Even the act of breathing has not to be done by the child. It is done by the mother. Nor does the child have to eat; that is also done by the mother. Even the blood circulating in the body of the child is the blood that is flowing in the mother.
The child does not do anything on its own. It is in a condition of total inactivity. There is a child and there is a life, but this life is not having any activity. During that period in the mother's womb there is total inactivity.
Psychologists have concluded that the desire and search for liberation, heaven or salvation is due to an unconscious memory of the experience of the inactive state of life in the mother's womb.
The child has known supreme silence in the womb. This memory is hidden deep down in the unconscious. That nine-months' experience in the mother's womb was very blissful, because then there was nothing to be done. There was no responsibility, no burden, no anxiety, no work. There was only existence for you - just being. This state is very similar to the state we call liberation. This experience is hidden within you. That is why, after birth, you are not able to be happy anywhere, and you find that everything is lacking something. Psychologists say further that this can only be possible if you have had a prior experience of blissfulness with which you can compare your present.
Every human being says that life is unhappy. If you have not had any experience of happiness, how could you recognize unhappiness? Everyone is saying that he is in search of happiness. What is this happiness which we are in search of? How can you search after that which you have not previously tasted? How can you desire something which has not been previously known? In the unconscious mind, there is a ray of experience, there is a seed hidden. You have known some bliss, some heaven that was lived, some music that was heard. No matter how much you may have forgotten it, its unquenched thirst pervades your entire existence. Knowledge of its existence lies hidden within. Only for that are we in search.
Psychologists say that the search for liberation is really a search for a cosmic womb, and until such time when the whole existence becomes your womb, the search will continue unabated. This is a very meaningful and valuable statement. But in this connection, it is good to remember first that the child is in a state of inactivity in the mother's womb. During that period there is no question of being active. There is just a blissful silence. The child is in deep inactivity, just sleeping twenty-four hours
a day. This is a long sleep of nine months. But just after the child is born, it sleeps for twenty-two hours, then for twenty hours, then eighteen, and slowly it awakens. Years will pass after which the child will stabilize at a sleeping period of about eight hours, and many births will pass until that sleeping period drops to zero - until he will be so totally awake that even during sleep he will be fully aware.
Krishna has said that everyone sleeps except the awakened one. Before achieving this awakened state, a long chain of births will have to be passed through.
Inactivity is the foundation and blissful silence is the peak. This house which we call life is built on the foundation of inactivity. The middle structure is the active part and the dome of that temple is ultimate bliss. To me, this is the structure of life. That is why I have practiced inactivity in the first part of my life.
The first years of my life were spent, like Lao Tzu, in experiencing the mysteries of the tamas guna.
My attachment with Lao Tzu is, therefore, fundamental. I was inactive in everything; inactivity was the achievement sought by me. As far as possible, nothing was done - only as much as was unavoidable or compulsory. I did not so much as move a hand or a foot without a reason.
In my house, the situation was such that my mother sitting before me would say, "Nobody else can be found and I want to send someone to fetch vegetables from the market." I would hear this as I sat idly in front of her. I knew that even if the house was on fire, she would say to me, "No one else can be found and our house is on fire. Who will extinguish it?" But silently, the only thing I did was to watch my inactivity as a witness, in full awareness. Let me narrate some incidents to illustrate this point.
In the last year of my university education, there was one professor of philosophy. Like most professors of philosophy, he was obstinate and eccentric. He was obstinate in his determination not to see any woman. Unfortunately we were only two students in his class: one was myself and the other was a young girl. Therefore, this professor had to teach us while keeping his eyes closed.
This was a very lucky thing for me, because while he would give a lecture I would sleep in the class.
Because there was a young girl in the class he could not open his eyes. However, the professor was very pleased with me, because he thought that I also believed in the principle of not looking at women, and that in the whole university there was at least one other person who did not see women. Therefore, many times when he met me alone he told me that I was the only person who could understand him.
But one day this image of me was erased. The professor had one other habit. He did not believe in a one-hour period for his lectures. Therefore, he was always given the last period by the university. He would say, "It is in my hands when to begin a lecture, but it is not in my hands to end it." Therefore, his lecture might end in sixty minutes or eighty or even ninety minutes; it made no difference to him.
He would say that he would not necessarily cease to speak when the bell indicating the end of a period rang. Only when the subject begun was completed would he cease to speak. Therefore, during these eighty to ninety minutes I used to sleep in his class.
There was an understanding between that young girl and myself that she would wake me up when the period was almost at an end. One day, however, she had been called by someone for some
urgent work during the middle of the period, and she went away. I kept on sleeping and the professor went on lecturing. When the period was over and he opened his eyes, he found me sleeping. He woke me up and asked why I was sleeping. I said to him, "Now that you have found me sleeping, I would like to tell you that I have been sleeping daily, that I have no quarrel with young women and that it is very pleasurable to sleep while you are lecturing."
Sleeping was more or less a sort of meditation for me. I slept as long as I could. It is interesting to note that if you sleep in excess of your requirements, you remain awake and aware even during sleep. If you sleep less than your requirements, then during sleep you become unconscious.
You cannot sleep more than your requirements. If you still persist in sleeping after the body's requirements for rest are over, someone inside you remains aware and becomes a witness of all that is happening around you. If you remain lying down for thirty-six hours at a stretch, you will have an inkling of what Krishna means when he says that at night the sage remains awake. If you continue to keep the body in a condition of sleep even after it does not need any sleep, then within you a sort of wakeful sound begins to become audible.
In those days of continuous sleeping, I began to realize that it is possible to remain awake in sleep.
I slept during the night, morning and afternoon continually. Whenever there was a chance to sleep I did not miss it. My family members and friends believed that I was totally lazy and that I would not be able to do anything in life. In a way, from their point of view, they were right - but not so from my side. I had made inactivity an experiment in meditation.
There was another professor of mine. He was also a good friend, and he was as inactive as I was.
Since he was also living alone, as was I, he suggested that it would be better if we roomed together.
I told him that there might be some difficulty in this. Quite possibly, I thought, I might disturb his sleep or he might disturb mine. However, if he still wished that we stay together, it would be necessary to make some arrangements, since both of us were lazy. Even now he is like that. He has not given up this particular quality of his. But he has never made this quality an experiment in meditation; otherwise he would have been beyond it by now.
Bear in mind that within a few days you will be able to transcend anything which you make a part of your meditation. Meditation means transcendence. Anything which you fully and totally enjoy you will be able to transcend. If you experience inactivity fully, you will suddenly find that the inactivity has left you forever. So if there is anything from which you want to be freed, enjoy it fully. For this reason I thought it best to totally enjoy my inactivity first.
When my professor friend and I started staying together, on the very first day I had to settle what would be our arrangements. Until now we had been living apart, so there had been no need for any particular arrangements. First of all he proposed that whosoever got up earlier should go and bring milk. I immediately agreed. I was pleased and he was also pleased. But both of us were in illusion.
I had been thinking that there was no need for me to get up first in the morning, but to my dismay he was also thinking the same. About nine o'clock the next morning, I opened my eyes. When I saw him sleeping, I slept again. He awoke by ten in the morning and saw me sleeping. He also wanted to sleep, but there was one difficulty for him. He had to go to the university at eleven o'clock. After all, he was in service, but I was only a student. Thus, I had neither any compulsion nor necessity to go. As it was, I never did attend college regularly.
Ultimately, out of sheer necessity, he had to get up and fetch the milk. By the time he came back I
had also got up and would be sitting. He told me that this type of friendship would not work, because now it had become a daily problem. He said he had to go to the university, so he could at best sleep only up to ten o'clock while I could wait for the whole day. It meant that he would have to fetch the milk every day, and if that were the case the friendship could not continue.
I had made it my first principle to refrain from doing anything. For the two years that I was in the university hostel, I never cleaned or swept my room. I kept my cot right at the entrance of my room so that from the door I could jump straight into my cot and from the cot I could jump straight out of the room. Why should the whole room be unnecessarily crossed?, I felt. Neither did I want to enter into the room, nor was there any question of cleaning it. There was, however, a sort of joy in this.
Things were left the same way that they had been arranged prior to my living there; no change was made. No more was ever done than the minimum that was necessary. Because changing things around required that something be done, things were kept as they were. But due to this, some unique experiences began to dawn, as every guna has its own unique experience. No matter how much rubbish collected in my room, it did not disturb me at all. I had learned to live with that just as I would live in a place which is meticulously cleaned.
In the university where I was studying, new buildings were as yet not constructed. It was a newly established university, and military barracks were used as a hostel. Because the barracks were in a deep forest, it was common for snakes to appear. I used to watch those snakes while sleeping in my cot. The snakes came, rested in the room and went away. Neither did they disturb me at any time, nor did I disturb them.
If there is no feeling to do anything about a thing, many things become accepted as natural. If there is no feeling to do anything in life, the degree of discontent suddenly drops. In those days there was no reason for any discontent, because by not doing anything I had no demands, and there was no question of expecting any fruit or result out of doing nothing. When you do not do anything, then whatsoever comes to you satisfies you. Sometime or the other, some friend, out of pity, cleaned the room and I was filled with a feeling of gratitude.
During the eight or ten days when examinations were on, the superintendent of my hostel used to awaken me at seven o'clock in the morning so that I would not remain sleeping while the examinations were on. He would give me a lift in his car and drop me off at the examination hall.
Without effort, I used to earn sympathy and compassion from all, because all had understood that I would save myself from doing whatsoever I could.
Many astonishing things were happening. I am telling you these things so that you can realize that life is full of mysteries. My professor would come and tell me before the date of an examination what I should read in order to answer a particular question. I had never gone to ask anyone for anything.
Even after the professor indicated the likely questions, he did not trust that I would read the portion he suggested. Therefore, he would look at me with an inquiring gesture in order to know whether I understood what he had said. He would add that the indicated questions would definitely be asked, because he was the one who prepared the exams. There was no doubt; those questions would definitely be asked.
I am trying to tell you that if you attempt to snatch and steal from the world, there will be great
opposition everywhere. But if you are in a condition of doing nothing, all doors open and things are simply given to you.
In those days I used to go on lying upon the cot, vacantly watching the ceiling above. I came to know after a long time that Meher Baba had meditated in this manner only. I did this without any effort, because while lying down on a cot what else is there to do? If the sleep was over, I would just go on looking at the ceiling without even blinking the eyes. Why even blink the eyes? It is also a type of doing. It is also a part of activity. I just went on lying there. There was nothing to be done.
If you remain lying down like that, just looking at the ceiling for an hour or two, you will find that your mind becomes clear like a cloudless sky - just thoughtless. If someone can make inactivity his achievement in life, he can experience thoughtlessness very naturally and easily.
In those days, I neither believed in God nor in the soul. The only reason for not believing was that by believing something would have to be done. For inactivity atheism is very helpful, because if God is, then some work will have to be done for him. But without any belief on my part in God and soul, by my simply lying down silently, the radiance of both God and soul began to be seen. I did not give up inactivity until inactivity left me. Until then, I had decided to continue on like that - just doing nothing.
I have understood that if one can thoroughly live out the principle of inactivity, thereafter the rajas guna will automatically begin to develop from within, because this is a second quality hidden in the second stage of life. After the first stage is completed and transcended, the second stage, of activity, begins. Activity will grow, so to speak, within you. This activity will also be of a unique type. It is not the activity of a politician, anxious and tense, running for election. If inactivity has been made an achievement and goal by you, if inactivity turns out to be the road leading you to thoughtlessness, then activity will not be motivated by desires. Rather, it will be motivated by compassion. This activity I have also lived through fully.
I never had any feeling to erect barriers in front of a natural process. Whatsoever was happening was allowed to happen. If things were always allowed to happen that way, one would transcend beyond one's usual existence, because then one is not the doer. The doing alone is the doer.
When this second phase - that of rajas - began, I kept on traveling throughout the country. As much as I traveled in those ten to fifteen years, no one would travel even in two or three lives. As much as I spoke during those ten to fifteen years would ordinarily require ten to fifteen lives. From morning until night I was on the move, traveling everywhere. With or without any reason, I was creating controversies and making criticisms - because the more the controversies, the quicker the transition through the second phase of activity. I therefore began to criticize Gandhiji, I began to criticize socialism.
Neither did I have any relationship with these subjects, nor was there any attachment to politics. I had no interest whatsoever in these. But when the entire population of the country was absorbed in these tensions, and I had to pass by this same population, there seemed, even if just for fun, a necessity to create controversies. Therefore, during this transition of my second phase of activity, I engineered a number of controversies and enjoyed them.
If these controversies had been created due to tension-filled actions motivated by desire, it would have brought me unhappiness. But as all this was just for the necessity to develop the rajas guna, just for its expression, there was fun and interest in it. These controversies were just like the acting of an actor.
With one Harigirji Maharaj, a famous Vedantic scholar of Punjab, a big controversy was begun on Vedanta. For me it was just a play. For him it was a serious matter; for him it was a question of principle. He became filled with tension.
With the Shankaracharya of Puri also, a big controversy began in Patna. For me it was a play, but for him it was a question of his very profession. He was so much enraged that he had to be rescued from almost falling down from the pulpit. His whole body was shaking. But I had to allow the quality of activity full play so that it would be transcended. Many friends tried to stop me, but from my side I did not want to stop until the quality of activity dissipated itself and became spent.
Three weeks out of a month I was sitting on trains. One morning I would be in Bombay, the next evening I would be in Calcutta, the next day in Amritsar, and the following day in Ludhiana or Delhi. The whole country was the field for my operations. Everywhere, therefore, wherever I went, controversies naturally grew in abundance, because if you do something actively a reaction is bound to be there. Action and reaction are born simultaneously.
During the period of inactivity I practically did not speak at all - or I spoke but little. If questioned repeatedly, I would reply briefly. During the period of activity, I went on speaking even if uncalled for and uninvited. I went myself to people just to speak and my language was full of fire. Now people come to me and ask why I am not now speaking in this same fiery language that used to stop one's very heartbeats even.
In those days, there was fire in my language. That fire was not mine; it came out of the rajas guna.
That was only one method for burning out the fire of the rajas guna. It must burn in full ferocity so that it can turn to ashes quickly. The milder the fire, the longer it takes to burn out. It was, therefore, a process of total burning out for the purpose of a speedier reduction to ashes.
Now that fire is quenched. Now, just as the sun withdraws its rays in the evening, as a fisherman withdraws his fishing net, I am slowly withdrawing. It is not proper to say that "I" will withdraw. The withdrawal will automatically happen, because the third phase - that of the sattwa guna - has begun.
Therefore, you may be watching my gradual withdrawal from activities. Fifty thousand persons can listen to me in your place, but I am satisfied if only fifty persons listen - and soon I will be pleased even with only five persons.
Therefore, as the rajas guna subsides and the effects of the sattwa guna begin to appear, all actions dissolve into silence. In the state of tamas, all actions cease, but that ceasing is like that of one going to sleep. In the sattwic state also all actions dissolve into silence, but that dissolution is into total awareness.
There is a similarity between the principles of inactivity and of serenity in the sense that both will end in silence. However, the form of silence arising out of the principle of inactivity, tamas, will be that of sleep, whereas the form of silence arising from the principle of serenity, sattwa, will be that of silent awareness.
I declare this to be the proper process of life: the first phase pass in inactivity, the second in activity, and the third in serenity. And if you can manage to remain detached during all these phases, then you are in meditation. You must be fully aware during these phases that it is not you who is doing, that it is only the gunas that are at play, that you are not the doer, but only the observer - the witness.
And during the play of inactivity, the play of activity, or the play of serenity, if you are only a witness, an observer, if that conviction persists, then all the three gunas will just spend themselves, and you will rest in a transcendental existence which is beyond gunas.
One has to reach that fourth stage which is beyond all the three. It is not even proper to call it the fourth, as there is only nothingness there. None of the three gunas exists in it.
Krishna has expressed himself in all the three gunas simultaneously. I have expressed myself in all, one at a time, in separate time periods. Therefore, in my statements also there will be inconsistency.
Whatsoever I said or did during the moments of tamas will differ from what I said or did during the moments of rajas. And whatsoever I spoke or did during my moments of rajas will differ in many respects from whatsoever I have been speaking or doing during my moments of sattwa.
