Moment Of Awareness

We will have a few questions from Yoga Sutra 25.

IS IT A VERY GOOD SIGN THAT ONE HAS NO QUESTIONS TO ASK?

If really it happens that you have no questions to ask, it is a tremendous phenomenon. It is one of the most beautiful – states of mind; because when there are no questions, that non questioning consciousness is the answer to all questions. Not that you get the answers, but, simply, questions dissolve. The mind becomes non-tense, because each question is a tension, is a worry; it is an anxiety.

And no answer is going to solve the question. The questioning mind is the problem, not the question. Your question can be answered, but from the answer your questioning mind will create a thousand and one more questions; you will reduce every answer into many more questions. It never helps. It helps only when all questions drop, when consciousness transcends questioning, when you understand that there is nothing to be asked, nothing to be answered.

Life is a mystery, not a problem – you cannot ask anything about it. If it really happens, this is samadhi. This is what my whole effort is all about. You should come to a point where no question arises. In that silence, in that total beatitude, in that peace, you are transformed: all anxiety, anguish, disappears.

But the question is if it is real, because you may not be asking questions and questions are there; then it is of no use. Then it is better to ask. If questions are in the mind and you don’t ask, then you feel shy, that won’t help. It is better to ask and be finished with them. Not that by asking you will get the answers – nobody has got the answer – nobody ever had it – nobody will ever have it. The answer is impossible because life is a mystery. It cannot be solved. The more you solve it, the more you find that it is impossible to solve it. But by questioning, by and by, you become aware of the futility of questioning.

Then one day in a subtle moment of awareness, in an integrated moment of consciousness, you transcend questions. Just as a snake goes out of the old skin – the old skin is dropped, the snake moves on – one day your consciousness moves and the old skin of questions is left behind. Suddenly, you are fresh and virgin – attained. You have become a Buddha. A Buddha-consciousness is not that consciousness which has all answers; it is a consciousness which has no questions.

Questions were asked to Osho – IT HAS BEEN SAID THAT IN TIMES OF GREAT STRESS – SOCIAL, ECONOMIC, RELIGIOUS – THAT GREAT GOOD IS POSSIBLE. IS THIS FORMULATION REFLECTIVE OF WHAT WE ARE IN POONA EXPERIENCING IN YOUR PRESENCE?

Osho’s answer – Yes, a time of crisis is a very valuable time. When everything is established and there is no crisis things are dead. When nothing is changing and the grip of the old is perfect, it is almost impossible to change yourself. When everything is in chaos, nothing is static, nothing is secure, nobody knows what is going to happen the next moment – in such a chaotic moment – you are free, you can change. You can attain to the innermost core of your being.

It is just like in a prison: when everything is settled it is almost impossible for any prisoner to get out of it, to escape from the prison. But just think: there has been an earthquake and everything is disturbed and nobody knows where the guards are and nobody knows where the jailer is, and all rules have dissolved, and everybody is running on his own – in that moment if a prisoner is a little alert he can escape very easily; if he is foolish, only then will he miss the opportunity.

When the society is in a turmoil and everything is in crisis, a chaos pervades – this is the moment, if you want, you can escape from the prison. It is so easy because nobody is guarding you, nobody is after you. You are left alone. Things are in such a shape that everybody is bothering about his own business – nobody is looking at you. This is the moment. Don’t miss that moment.

In great crisis periods, always, much enlightenment has happened. When the society is established and it is almost impossible to rebel, to go beyond, not to follow the rules, enlightenment becomes very, very difficult – because it is freedom; it is anarchy. In fact it is moving away from society and becoming individual. Society doesn’t like individuals: it likes robots who just look like individuals but are not individuals. Society doesn’t like authentic beings. It likes masks, pretenders, hypocrites, but not real persons because a real person is always trouble. A real person is always a free person. You cannot enforce things on him; you cannot make a prisoner out of him; you cannot enslave him. He would like to lose his life, but he would not like to lose his freedom. Freedom is more valuable to him than life itself. Freedom is the highest value for him. That’s why in India we have called the highest value moksha, nirvana; those words mean freedom – total freedom – absolute freedom.

Whenever society is in a turmoil and everybody is tending his own business – has to tend – escape. At that moment the doors of the prison are open, many cracks are in the walls, the guards are not on duty… one can escape easily.

The same situation was at the time of Buddha, twenty-five centuries before. It always comes in a circle; the circle completes in twenty-five centuries. Just as a circle completes in one year – again summer comes back, one year’s circle and the summer is back – there is a great circle of twenty-five centuries. Every time after twenty-five centuries, the old foundations dissolve; the society has to lay new foundations. The whole edifice becomes worthless; it has to be demolished.

Then economic, social, political, religious – all systems – are disturbed. The new is to be born; it is a birth pain.

There are two possibilities. One, one is the possibility that you may start fixing the old falling structure: you may become a social servant and you may start making things more stable. Then you miss, because nothing can be done: society is dying. Every society has a life-span and every culture has a life-span.

As a child is born and we know the child will become a youth, will become old, and will die – seventy years, eighty years, at the most a hundred years – every society is born, is young, becomes old, has to die. Every civilization that is born has to die. These critical moments are moments of the death of the past, the old; moments of the birth of the new. You should not bother; you should not start supporting the old structure – it is going to die. If you are supporting, you may be crushed under it. This is one possibility: that you start supporting the structure. That is not going to work. You will miss the opportunity.

Then there is another possibility: you may start a social revolution to bring the new. Then, too, again you will miss the opportunity, because the new is going to come. You need not bring it. New is already coming – don’t bother about it; don’t become a revolutionary. The new will come. If the old is gone nobody can force it to remain, and if the new is there and the time has reached and the child is ripe in the womb, the child is going to be born. You need not try any Caesarian operation. The child is going to be born; don’t bother about it. Revolution goes on happening by itself; it is a natural phenomenon. No revolutionaries are needed.

You need not kill the person; he is going to die himself. If you start working for a social revolution – you become a communist, a socialist – you will miss.

These are the two alternatives in which you can miss. Or you can use this time of crisis and be transformed, use it for your individual growth. There is nothing like a critical moment in history: everything is tense and everything is intense, and everything has come to a moment, to a peak, from where the wheel will turn.

Use this door, this opportunity, and be transformed. That’s why my emphasis is for individual revolution.

AT WHAT POINT CAN CATHARSIS BE DROPPED?

It drops itself when it is finished. You need not drop it. By and by you will feel there is no energy in it. By and by you will feel that you are doing catharsis but they are empty gestures, the energy is not there – in fact, you are pretending to do it, acting it; it is not happening. Whenever you feel that it is not happening and you have to force it, it has already dropped. You just have to listen to your heart.

When you are angry, how do you know when the anger has disappeared? When you are sexual, how do you know that sexuality has gone? Because the energy from the thought is no longer there. The thought may remain, but the energy is no longer there; it is an empty thing. You were angry a few minutes before: now, your face may be still a little angry, but deep down you know now there is no anger, the energy has moved. In fact, you have been angry at your child: you cannot smile, otherwise the child will misunderstand you, so you are pretending that you are still angry; but you would like to laugh now and you would like to bring the child near you, kiss the child, love the child. But you are still pretending. Otherwise the whole point will be lost – your anger – and the child will start laughing, and he will think it was nothing. You are pretending, just the face, but deep down the energy has moved.

The same will happen in catharsis. You are doing catharsis; it is an energy phenomenon. Many emotions are suppressed – they are uncoiling, they are coming up, bubbling up. Then there is much energy. You are screaming – there is energy. And after the screaming you feel relieved, as if a burden has disappeared. You feel weightless; you feel more at ease, calmed down, slowed down. But if there is no suppressed emotion, then you can do the gesture – after the gesture you will feel tired, because you were unnecessarily wasting the energy. There was no suppressed emotion, nothing was coming up, and you were unnecessarily jumping and screaming; you will feel tired.

If the catharsis is true, you will feel rejuvenated after it; if the catharsis is false, you will feel tired. If the catharsis was true, you will feel very, very alive after it, younger than before, as if a few years have disappeared – you were thirty, now you are twenty-eight or twenty-five. A load has disappeared – you are younger, livelier, fresher. But if you are just making the gesture, you will feel tired – you were thirty: you will feel thirty-five, old.

You have to watch. Nobody else can tell what is happening within you. You have to be a watcher. Continuously watch what is happening. Don’t go on pretending – because catharsis is not the goal; it is just a means. One day it has to drop. Don’t go on carrying it. It is just like a boat, a ferry boat: you cross the stream and then you forget about it; you don’t carry it on your head.

Buddha used to tell a story again and again that once it happened, five fools crossed a river. Then they pondered over the matter because their boat had helped them so much. It was the rainy season and the river was flooded and it was almost impossible to cross it without the help of the boat, so they said, “This boat has been so beneficial that how can we leave it here? We should show our respect and gratitude.” So they carried the boat on their head in the marketplace.

People asked, “What are you doing?” They said, “This boat has helped us so much, how can we leave it now? We will carry it our whole life. Even then the gratitude will not be enough. This boat has saved our lives.”

Buddha used to say, “Don’t be foolish like those five fools.” Religion is a boat; life is the goal. Religion is the boat; ecstasy is the goal. All methods are methods, remember – don’t forget that. No method should become the goal. The whole of Patanjali has to be dropped one day because it is all methodology. And when the whole of Patanjali has been dropped then suddenly you will discover a Lao Tzu hidden behind – he is the goal. The goal is to be. The goal is not to do anything; the goal is to be. All methods are to do something, they help to bring you home, but when you enter the home you forget about the cart that brought you or the donkey on which you came or the boat. All methods drop outside: you have reached home.

Remember, catharsis can become your obsession. You can go on doing it, and then it can become a rut, a pattern. It is not to be made a pattern. Watch, when it is needed, go on watching. By and by you will become aware – it is a very subtle awareness because the phenomenon is very subtle – that now there is no energy: you scream but really the scream is not coming, you jump but you have to make an effort. Then allow it to be dropped; don’t carry the boat.

At what point can catharsis be dropped? It drops itself. You simply remain alert and watch it. And when it wants to drop, don’t cling to it; let it be dropped.