Tao: The Pathless Path

"The Way has no map, the Way is not charted, the Way is not such that you can follow somebody and find it. The Way is not like a super highway, the Way is more like a bird flying in the sky - it leaves no marks behind. The bird has flown but no marks are left. So the Way is a pathless path. It is a path, but it is a pathless path. It is not ready made, available, you can not decide to walk on it, you will have to find it. And you will have to find it in your own way, nobody else's is going to function. Buddha has walked, Lao Tzu has walked, Jesus has walked, but those ways ar not going to help you because you are not Jesus, you are not Lao Tzu, you are not Lieh Tzu. You are you, a unique individual. Only by walking, only by living your life will you find the Way. This is something of great value.

That's why Taoism is not an organised religion. It can not be. It is an organic religion, but not an organised religion. You can be a taoist if you simply live your life authentically, spontaneously; if you have the courage to go into the unknown on your own, individual, not leaning on anybody, not following anybody, simply going into the dark night not knowing wether you will arrive anywhere or you will be lost. If you have courage, that risk is there - it is risky, it is adventurous.

Christianity, Hinduism, Mohammedanism are super-highways: you need not to risk anything, you simply follow the crowd. you go with the mob. With tao you have to go alone, you have to be alone. Tao respects the individual and not the society. Tao respects the unique and not the crowd. Tao respects freedom and not conformity. Tao has no tradition. Tao is rebellion and the greatest rebellion possible.

That's why I call Tao the pathless path. It is a path, but not like other paths. It has a very different quality to it, the quality of freedom, the quality of anarchy, the quality of chaos. Tao says that if you impose a discipline on yourself you will be a slave. The discipline has to arise out of your awareness, then you will be a Master. If you impose an order on your life this will just be a pretension: the disorder will remain deep in the very core of your being; the order will be on the surface, at the center there will be disorder. This is not going to help. The real order arises not from the outside, but from the innermost core of your being. Allow disorder, don't repress it. Face it, take the challenge of disorder - and by taking the challenge of disorder and living it, living dangerously, an order arises in your being."





"Of course, freedom is dangerous because there is no security in it, no safety in it. There is great safety when you are following the crowd; the crowd protects you. There is great safety when you are fooling the crowd; because of the vey presence of so many people you feel that you are not alone - you can not be lost. Because of this security you are lost. Because of this security you never search and you never seek and you never enquire. And truth can not be found unless you have enquired, unless you have enquired on your own. If you take borrowed truths you become knowledgeable, but to be knowledgeable is not to know.

Tao is very much against knowledge. Tao says that even if you're ignorant and the ignorance is yours, it is good, at least is yours. And it has an innocence to it. But if you are burdened with accumulated knowledge, scripture, tradition, then you are living a false, pseudo life. Then you are not really living, you are just pretending that you are living. You are making impotente gestures, empty gestures. Your life has not the intensity, the passion - can not have the passion. That passion arises only when you move on your own, alone, into the vast sky of existence.

Why can't you move alone? Because you don't trust life. (...)

Man has created these ideologies just to hide the fact that he does not know, to hide the fact that he is ignorant. Man is cunning and he can create rationalisations, but these rationalisations are bogus - you can not move with them into the truth. You will have to drop them. Tao says that ignorance is not the barrier against truth - knowledge is the barrier."




"So the difference between the poet and the mystic is not much. The poet is coming closer, the mystic has arrived. For the poet, there are only glimpses of truth; for the mystic, truth has become his very life. The poet is only transported to the world of truth and then falls back again. For the mystic, truth has become his abode: he lives there, he lives as truth."



"Tao means to exist on the Way and to exist in such a way that the Way and you are not two. This existence is one - we are not separate from it. The separation, the idea of separation is very illusory. We are joined together, we are one whole. We are not islands, we are one continent. You are in me, I am in you. The trees are in you,  you are in the trees. It is an interconnected whole.

The whole is one - separation is not possible. The very idea of separation is the barrier. The idea of separation is what we call the ego. If you are with the ego, you are not on the path, you are not in Tao. When the ego is dropped, you are in Tao. Tao means an egoless existence, living as part of this infinite whole, not living as a separate entity."



Osho - Tao The Pathless Path Volume I

The Only Answer

"Unless you ask the real question how can any answer help? But the real question is not an intelectual thing, let me tell you, that real question is "Who am I?". All other questions are just formulations of this basic question. 

Somebody asks what is God, but that is not a real question. If you don't know yourself how are you supposed to know God? Somebody asks "Who created the world?" but that is meaningless. You don't even know how you came to existence, what to say about the world? First try to solve your own mystery. Encounter it. So the basic question of all questions is "Who am I?"? How to answer it? Can somebody else answer it for you? That is not possible. How can I say who you are if you can not say it yourself, how can I say who you are? Whatsoever I say will again become information in the head."

"Now the trouble arises because Budha, Jesus, Krishna, me, we all go on saying: "You are a God.". The answer is right but you are not at the point where you can catch it. You are not ready for it. The more you look into yourself, the more you feel yourself to be like a dog rather than a God."

"Rather than thinking that you are a God, you create Gods in your own image. No, if I say that you are a God, this answer won't help - you will have to find your own answer.

The question is existential; you will need an existential answer. The question is out of your being; only out of your being can the real answer come. You will have to go deep inside yourself. First ask: "Who am I?". Ask "Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?". Let this question penetrate into every fibre and cell of your body ad your mind. Let your whole body mind vibrate with the question "Who am I?". It will take months, sometimes years, but it pays. Let your whole being vibrate with one question: "Who am I?". Let this question sink do deep that whatsoever you are doing the question remains vibrating deep down "Who am I?". Walking, eating, talking, listening, the question goes on pulsating deep, deep down "Who am I? Who am I". By and by the question will not be verbal, it will be just a feeling - "Who am I?" not verbal, not these words, "Who am I?". It will be just a question mark in your being, just a questioning, a quest.

And then one day, when your total being is so full of the question that your whole being has become a question-mark, the answer comes. It will not be verbal, it will not be somebody saying "Listen, Tushita" - the question is from Tushita - "Listen, Tushita". Nobody will say that. Suddenly something will explode, as a seed explodes, as a bud opens. And you will be full of the fragrance. When you open your eyes all questioning has disappeared, all problems have disappeared. Then you live the life of no problems. And only then will you live, only the will you be. Then everything is a benediction. Each breath is a blessing - and all, all is nirvana, all is God.

That is what is needed deep down in you, Tushita. You ask "I would like you to answer me, to tell me something, but I don't know the question." It is good that you don't know, because if you know the question it is bound to be the wrong thing. This is the question. But don't use it as a question because the answer is not going to come from the outside the answer is hidden in the question itself. The question is a seed, the outermost core of the answer is the hidden tree in the seed. Take the question as a seed and become the soil for it. A "skullfull" soil will do, your head becomes the soil - that is what I call "skullfull" soil. Only one question, only one question, only one question - you become pregnant with the question. And the pregnancy becomes so deep, that you cannot forget it in any moment. Even while you are sleeping it will be there. Even in your sleep, in your dream, the question will continue - "Who am I?" not so much in words, remember - again an repeat, not so much in words - but the question will be there, "Who am I?" pulsating, streaming, moving, moving deeper and deeper and deeper. And one day it reaches to the very core, it hits your heart, the inner space, the heart space. And then something opens. If you can ask rightly within your own being, you will come to the right answer. And that is the only answer - the one you come to yourself."

Osho - Tao: The Pathless Path II

Can't You Trust Life?

"How to live for nine months? You lived well, you did well, perfectly well - otherwise you would not have been there. And there was no yoga teacher to teach you to be in a certain posture, to teach you how to breathe, how to do Pranayama and Pratyahar, and which Asana will be the best. You didn't ask anybody. There was nobody to ask. You lived in the womb naturally and you grew. God was taking care, the whole was taking care, everything was provided. Then you were born and then you became a child - you did not ask how to breathe, how to walk, how to talk. Everything came by and by. Can't you trust life? One day you became a young man, youth came, and love started arising in your being. One day you will become old, life will start disappearing, and then one day death will come and the circle will be complete. 

Why are you always trying to interfere? Tao says you should be in Wu-Wei, non-interference. Let the whole do things. This is a very radical attitude, this is the greatest revolutionary attitude ever. "How?" is very childish. Yoga is for children, Tao is for grown-ups. So don't ask: but then how is one to live before becoming enlightened? Just live. And just living, I tell you, is fantastic. It is far out!"

Osho - Tao: The Pathless Path II

Nothing Is Going To Happen Ever

"Nothing is going to happen ever. Drop waiting, start being. Waiting is a thought process, being is existential. Live, live as much as you can, as intensely as you can, as passionately as you can. And through that passionate love for life, through that flame of authentic living, something burns down in you: the ego. And when the ego is burnt down, something happens. That happening has nothing to do with your effort. It comes. It is a happening."

Osho - Tao: The Pathless Path II

The Eye Of The Storm

"Yes, it will become more clear in a relationship because when you are alone you don't have any mirror. Just as you need a mirror to see your faceso you need the mirror of relationship to see your being. Love functions as a mirror, it shows you where you are, what you are, who you are. Hence any people become afraid of relationship. They are cowards. They escape to the Himalayas or to Tibet or to the monasteries or to the caves. Why are they escaping and from what? They are escaping from mirrors. I have heard about an ugly woman who would never look in a mirror because she used to think that the mirrors were against her. These are you mahatmas. They escape from relationship because relationship shows their ugliness, relationship shows where they are, who they are. Sitting in their caves in the Himalays they feel perfectly beautiful because there is no mirror.

 

Never escape from relationship. That's why I have introduced sannyas with relationship, not without it. There is great meaning in it. Never on the earth has sannyas existed with relationship, that's why I say that sannyas has not really existed or, the sannyas that has previously existed was anaemic, bloodless. People thought they were beautiful without the mirror they thought they were beautiful. It is very easy to befool yourself when the mirror is not there. When you are in relationship with people, in a thousand and one ways you are provoked, challenged, seduced. Again and again you come to know your pitfalls, your limitations, your anger, your lust, your possessiveness, your jealousy, your sadness, your happiness all moods come and go, you are constantly in a turmoil. But this is the only way to know who you are.

 

Self-knowledge is not the knowledge of a dead self, self-knowledge is the knowledge of the process of the self. It is an alive phenomenon. The self is not a thing, it is an event it is a process. Never think in terms of things the self is not there inside you just like a thing waiting in a room. The self is a process: changing, moving, arriving at new altitudes, moving into new planes, going deeper into new depths. Each moment much work is going on and the only way to encounter this self is to encounter it in relationship.

 

Love is the mirror. Let your meditation be mirrored in love. If you find that something is missing, meditate more - but never escape from love; let it be mirrored in love again and again, because that will be the only criterion of whether you are growing or not. If you are really growing in love soon you will see that love has remained and jealousy has disappeared; love has remained and possessiveness has disappeared. A great purity arises, a great innocence. A fragrance is released into your soul. Go on meditating and go on loving. Let love and meditation be two things. Let them help each other.

 

I  am showing you a path which is arduous, which is really arduous. Love alone is good because there is nothing to reflect, meditation alone is simples because there is no mirror to reflect, but meditation and love together... I am throwing you into the very eye of the storm. But that is the only way one comes home.

And when things become silent after the storm, the silence is alive, it is not the dead silence of a cemetery."

Osho - Tao: The Pathless Path Vol. II

The Real Thing Is To Receive The Truth

"Why has there never been a single woman enlightened master?

A woman cannot be a master - it is not possible. When a woman arrives she becomes a mistress, not a master. The fulfilment of a woman is love. Mastery is not the goal of the feminine mind; they don't become masters, they become mistresses. To be a master is basically a male effort. Awareness is the way of man, love is the way of woman.

On the path of awareness it is possible to teach; one can become a master. On the path of love, how can one teach love? You can flower, you can bloom in love, but how can you teach it? Yes, if somebody wants to learn from you he will learn it but you will not be a master.

(...)

She sings the song of the glory of her lord, she dances. If somebody can catch something from her, it is overflowing; but she cannot be a teacher. She is surrendered, her surrender is absolute. Yes, if you are in her company, you will learn what surrender is... But you will have to learn, she will not teach.

(...)

A man can become a good master. A woman can become a good disciple because to become a disciple means to become a receiver, to be receptive, to become a womb. To become a master means to become a giver.

(...)

Biologically, a woman is ready to receive the sperm of the man she loves. The man cannot become a mother, he can only become a father.

(...)

When a woman comes to a master she is already ready to surrender.

(...)

All the great disciples in the world were women.

Buddha had thousand of disciples, but the proportion has always been the same: three women, one man. So was the proportion with Mahavir.

(...)

And so was the case with Jesus.

The really devoted people around him were not the men but the women. When he was crucified all the man escaped, there was not a single man. All those so called apostles had all disappeared, but the women were there. Three women were there: they had no fear, they were ready to sacrifice themselves. When Jesus was taken down from the cross, it was not by men - those disciples had gone far away, and one or two were there but they were hiding in the crowd, women took down the body. And it is very significant that when Jesus appeared after three days, resurrected, he appeared to Mary Magdalen, not to a man.

(...)

She immediately recognized him.

(...)

When she went to tell the male disciples that Jesus was resurrected, they laughed. They said woman you are hallucinating. And they laughed and they said this is how women always are: imaginative, dreaming, romantic. Now look at this foolish woman. Jesus is dead. We have seen him die on the cross with our own eues. But she cried and she said listen to me. I have seen him. But they would not listen.

A woman can be a perfect disciple and this is how it should be. Woman is receptive, an opening, a womb. They have never been masters

(...)

But there have never been disciples like women

(...)

The female mind is more blessed. Because the real thing is to receive the truth, the real thing is not to give it that is secondary. And a woman is always more total than a man. Whenever she receives the truth she becomes luminous: her whole body, her whole being shows it, she carries an aura.

Have you not seen a woman who is pregnant, how beautiful she becomes? Her face glows, she is carrying a new life within her. And this is nothing compared to a woman who really becomes a disciple. She is carrying God himself within her. Her glory is infinite.

So don't be worried why women don't become masters. There is no need. If you can become disciples, that is natural and you will always remain true to nature."

Osho - Tao: The Pathless Path Vol I

"Devemos sempre optar pela alternativa que toque o nosso coração, escolher o que gostaríamos realmente de fazer, independentemente das consequências."
"A verdade acontece somente aos individuos.
Os percursos conhecidos nunca são trilhados por seres humanos como Sócrates, mas apenas pelas massas, pelas multidões (...)Essas pessoas nunca saem da autoestrada, e mantêm-se juntas porque isso lhes traz uma certa satisfação, um certo consolo... O consolo de não se sentirem sós..."
(...)
O que importa ao leitor é tomar consciência que a verdade sempre veio ao encontro dos individuos, e não os agregados de seres humanos. A verdade não é um fenómeno colectivo que aconteça às multidões. Ela acontece sempre aos individuos, tal como o amor.
No amor intervêm duas pessoas, enquanto que a verdade acontece somente a uma única. A verdade é um acontecimento vivido na mais absoluta solidão. A verdade acontece apenas aos seres rebeldes. Um rebelde, por natureza, vive perigosamente."

Osho em Viver Perigosamente