Re: “Do not decorate your prison.” / Религия и мистика / Ошо

Sitting together with Osho in ’74 in his Woodlands apartment in Bombay on our one-year anniversary, I asked him how it is that he reads me like an open book. He smiled as he hinted that when he found out who he is, he also met me and that in reality we are not two. Almost giggling by now, he said that we are both buddhas, that he is a waking buddha and I am a sleeping buddha. “Not much difference, eh?” No one had ever called me a buddha before, so that felt fine, but a sleeping buddha… my young spiritual ego took a hit. Osho asked me how my meditation was coming along. He had asked me to do the Dynamic Meditation for twenty-one mornings before our meeting. What rolled off my lips is what Groucho Marx famously said, “Close, but no cigar.” Osho’s giggle turned into a hearty laugh. I went on to explain that it was not so much as getting out of my mind, but it was more like I was moving furniture (thoughts) around in my home (mind).

He looked at me sternly as he said, “Do not decorate your prison.”

I have come to know that our minds are prisons until we are free, until we can watch our minds work for us instead of the other way around. Until we become the witness. Becoming the witness is the key to unlocking the mystery of this little book. Quite simply the witness is who you are as you watch what you do and think and feel. The witness is who you are. To remember that you are the witness requires that you become intimate with yourself. You can no longer treat yourself like a perfect stranger... what you need now is love plus a touch of awareness. Please don’t get depressed that you have wasted your entire life up to now. You can know. Your life is a journey and quite simply the journey is the goal. Trust yourself. The present is a present, so let’s start now, and when I say you, I am talking to myself as well. I am you and you are me and we are all together. You will need to quiet your mind to witness yourself as your character (your personality) running around in circles chasing your tail. As the waking Buddha reminds, “Be still and know.”

In the West, when I ask my friends, “Tell me who you are?” I often get an answer back, “I am a doctor, a lawyer, an Indian chief.” I get the answer of the doer. In the East, I often hear the sound of silence to that exact same question… an answer from your very being.

The question is, when are we becoming human beings instead of human doers? A human being also is a human doer, but he moves from his center, always remaining a witness when he moves into the cyclone of the marketplace.

From this very moment go back into your prison, into your mind. Now open the windows and the doors and your skylight. Let misery blow through you. Don’t grab onto it. Let bliss tickle you. This too will pass. Misery and bliss are both experiences. I wonder which experience you prefer. Do not choose. Life comes, life goes, and you are also not here to decorate your prison. Make a clean break. Freedom is the highest value, even higher than love. Freedom is you watching your mind without reacting. Freedom is responding to whatever life throws at you. In the East, this is known as No-Mind. In the West we doers call this the zone. In reality where there is no such thing as East or West, there is only life living, death dying while you remain the witness of this eternal play.

You are cordially invited to be a human being once and for all while your human doer gets involved in all sorts of dramas. You will know you are enlightened when your dramas unfold without touching you. For me right now the most important word in the English language is and; not Krishna Prem or you, but Krishna Prem and you. This book is not about meditating in the East or working downtown. It’s about movement… moving from your center (your inner world) into the marketplace (your outer world) and back again. According to Osho, quite simply, “God is Movement.”

Osho called this meeting of East and West Zorba the Buddha. You are aware of your Zorba. You know what it is to have fun in the world. Can you remain alert after one too many glasses of bubbly? At the same time, can you meditate while you sip? Again, for me, it’s not Zorba or the Buddha, its Zorba and the Buddha. I’ll drink to that if you are willing to close your eyes for twenty minutes and watch your breath before you dress for work today.

Yes, it is not your work to become someone in the future, but simply your play to remember who you are right now. Once and for all, life is not in your future, you are already alive and perfect. Wake up and disturb me. And I’ll do the same for you.

Love is, Krishna Prem

“This is the time for everybody to meditate. This is the time that, except for meditation, nothing can help you to get out of your misery. And meditation is a simple phenomenon. Just whenever you have time, sit silently, doing nothing. Relax, close your eyes, watch your thoughts as if you are watching a movie on the screen. You are just a watcher. If you can watch your thoughts just as if they are moving there on the screen, and you are not involved in them, they start dispersing. It is your involvement that gives them life energy. When you withdraw yourself and become just a witness, thoughts start falling, like leaves which are dead start falling from the trees. Soon you will be surprised, the screen is empty. Consciousness coming back to the original source is what I call enlightenment. This blissfulness happens here and now.”
The Last Testament, Vol 5, Osho

PS Стас, (Exaybachay), не декорирай затвора си