The Perfect Way. Osho

and tense condition of our minds we have gradually lost the ability to breathe deeply and fully. By the time we grow to adolescence, superficial and artificial breathing becomes a habit. You must have noticed yourself that the more your mind is disturbed the more your breathing loses its natural and rhythmic movement. Breathe in a natural way – rhythmically, effortlessly. The harmony of natural breathing helps dispel the restlessness of your mind.

      Osho,

       Why do you advise us to observe the breathing process?

      I do so because breathing, inhaling and exhaling, is the bridge between the body and the soul. The soul resides in the body through breathing and because of breathing. By becoming aware of your breath, by direct perception of breathing, you will gradually experience that you are not the body: “I am in the body but I am not the body alone. It is my abode but not my foundation.”

      As the direct perception of breathing deepens, more and more one experiences the presence, the proximity of the one who is not the body. There will come a moment when you will clearly see the separateness of your self and body. Then the three layers of your existence will be realized – the body, the breath and the soul. The body is the shell; the breath is the bridge, the connecting link; the soul, the self, is the foundation.

      The role of the breath on the path to self-realization is the most important one, because breathing is the midpoint. On one side of it we have the body; on the other, the soul. We already exist on the body level; what we yearn for is to be in the realm of the soul. Before this can be done it is essential to be at the level of prana, the breath. The transition is through the breath.

      Watching at the level of the breath, we can look both ways. From there the paths leading to the body and to the soul become clear. The path is one and the same, but the two directions stand out clearly. It then becomes easier to go on following the breath. I hope you now understand why my emphasis is on breathing.

      Osho,

       Why do you call meditation a non-doing? Is it not an act as well?

      Look here, please. My fist is closed. To close my fist I must make a positive action. Closing is an action, a doing. But when I wish to open it, what must I do? I don’t have to do anything to open it. If I simply drop the effort of closing the fist it will open on its own and the hand will return to its natural and normal state. Therefore I won’t call opening one’s fist a “doing.” It is a “non-doing,” or if you like you can call it “negative action.” But that makes no difference; it is the same thing. I have no insistence about words, just that you can understand my point, my intent.

      By calling meditation a non-doing, I wish to indicate that you should not regard meditation as a task or an occupation. Meditation is a state of non-occupation. It is a naturalness and you do not have to turn it into some kind of mental tension. If meditation were also a mental tension, a “doing,” it would not lead you into your self-nature, into peace. Tension itself is a restlessness. And in order to enter the realm of peace one has to begin with peace. If there is no peace at the very first step, there will certainly be none at the last. The last is just the culmination of the first.

      I see people going to temples and I see them worshipping gods and goddesses there. I also see them sitting in meditation, but it is all an activity, a tension, a sort of restlessness for them. And if they expect flowers of peace to bloom in this restlessness, they are utterly mistaken.

      If you want peace, if you wish to be peaceful, it is essential that you start out in peace from the very first moment.

      Chapter: 5

       Stop and See

      Do not search for truth. In searching there is ego. And it is the ego itself that is the obstacle. Just lose yourself, disappear. When the “I” as the ego disappears, that which really is, is seen. When the “I-ness” disappears, the isness of “I” is seen. Only by losing oneself does one attain one’s self. Just as new life sprouts from a seed only when the seed breaks apart and ceases to be, the shoot of immortal life springs up only when the seed called “I,” which is a covering over the soul, breaks apart and ceases to be.

      Remember this sutra: You have to disappear if you want to attain to self. Deathlessness is attained at the cost of death. A drop becomes the ocean when it loses itself in the ocean.

      You are the soul, but if you search for it within yourself you will find nothing but desire. Our whole lives are desire. Desire means wanting to become something, to attain something. Everyone wants to become somebody, to attain something. This race goes on every moment of our lives. Nobody wants to be where he is. Everybody wants to be where he is not. Desire means a blind dissatisfaction with what is and a blind longing for what is not. There is no end to this mad race because as soon as one gets something it becomes useless and then desire centers again on what one does not have. Desire is always for the unachieved.

      Desire is like the horizon. The more you try to approach it the farther it pulls away from you. This becomes possible because the horizon simply does not exist. It is just an appearance, an illusion. It is not real. If it were real it would come closer to you as you neared it; if it were unreal it would cease to be at your approach. But if it is neither real nor unreal, if it is an appearance, a dream, an illusion, a figment of the imagination, it will remain as far away as before, no matter how hard you try to get close to it.

      Unreal is the opposite of real. Illusion, maya, is not the opposite of real but it is its veil, its cover. Desire is not the opposite of the soul but it is its veil, its cover. It is a fog, a smoke that hides our being, our soul. We keep running after what we are not and as a consequence we cannot see what we are. Desire is a veil on the soul and because of that it becomes impossible for us to know our souls. Because we constantly want to become something else, we never look at that which we are.

      If this race, this desire to become something else ceases even for a moment, that which is manifests just as the sun manifests the moment the sky is cloudless. I call the absence of this race to become dhyana, meditation. And what a sense of wonder one experiences in the moment one knows that which really is, because in that moment everything one ever desired is attained. Seeing the soul is the total fulfillment of desire, because there is nothing lacking there.

      Thought is a sign of ignorance. In knowing, there is no thought, there is only seeing. Hence the path of thinking never takes one to knowing. Consciousness – being free of thought – is the door to knowing. Knowing is not an achievement, it is a discovery. We don’t have to achieve it, we have to uncover it. It is ever-present within us. We just have to dig it out as we dig out a well.

      Fresh water springs, natural sources of water, lie buried under layers of rock deep beneath the earth. As soon as these rocks are removed, the stream of water rushes out. I see layers of thought burying the sources of knowing. As soon as these thoughts are removed, we have a limitless stream of consciousness. Dig a well within yourselves. Remove the layers of thought with the tool of meditation. Make thoughts lifeless, make them rootless through right-mindfulness and alert awareness. What you will know then is knowing. In that pure flame of consciousness where there are no thoughts, is knowing.

      I do not ask you to go into solitude. I ask you to create solitude within yourself. A change of place won’t help, a change of your inner state is necessary. It is not the situation but the state of your mind that is the central and important point. You may go to a solitary place, but if there is no solitude within you, you will be surrounded by the crowd even there, for the crowd will be there inside you.