OshoSpeak – 2010: #3

From ‘Vedanta. Seven Steps to Samadhi. Talks on the Akshi Upanishad’



When you go to sleep tonight………..before going to sleep put off the light, sit on your bed, close your eyes and exhale deeply through the mouth with the sound O – Ooooo. Go on exhaling with the sound O, as deeply as possible. Your stomach goes in, the air moves out, and you go on creating the sound O. Remember, I am not saying aum, I am saying simply O. It will become aum automatically. You need not make it, then it is false. You simply create the sound O. When it becomes more harmonious and you are enjoying it, suddenly you will become aware it has become aum. But don’t force it to become aum, then it is false. When it becomes spontaneously aum then it is something vibrating from within. And this sound aum is the deepest sound, the most harmonious, the most basic.

When it happens and you enjoy and you flow in its music, your whole body and your brain relax. With the sound aum you will go on relaxing and your sleep will have a different quality, altogether different. And your sleep has to be changed, only then can you become more alert and aware.




A lion jumping on an animal and eating it, tearing it – is he bad or good? Is he evil? If we interpret then it looks very evil, violent. But the lion is not doing anything, he is simply eating. He is not aware of anything – of what is good and what is bad.

……And the same happens to the sage. When a man becomes enlightened the man has disappeared from him with all the interpretations, judgements. He has become pure…………The mind has been dropped. He is conscious, fully conscious, but with no contents to project. He looks at the world as it is, without any interpretation. And for the first time he comes to know reality.




Jesus says, “Judge ye not, so ye may not be judged.”

If judgement disappears, you have become innocent. If you don’t divide things into good and bad, ugly and beautiful, acceptable and nonacceptable; if you don’t divide things, if you look at reality without any division, your eyes will come into existence for the first time…………..There is nothing good or nothing bad – existence accepts everything. And when you also accept everything you have become existence-like. You have become one with it.
……….Morality, immorality – both are hindrances. When you transcend both you have transcended the mind




The word upanishad……..means sitting by the side of the master………not doing anything……..it is a question of being – absorbing the master. That’s what is meant in Christianity when Christ said, “Eat me. I will become your food.”



One of the greatest Tibetan mystics, Marpa, is reported to have said……..Somebody asked him, “Can’t scriptures help?” He said, “They can. They can help you to go beyond scriptures. That is their only use. Read the scriptures, study them; they will help you to understand that scriptures are useless, and the truth cannot be attained through them.”





The sage Sankriti then said to the sun god:
O Lord, please teach me the supreme knowledge.


The sun god said:
I shall now explain to you this most rare knowledge, upon the attainment of
which you will become free while yet dwelling in this body. See in all beings
the Brahman, who is one, unborn, still, imperishable, infinite, immutable
and conscious; so seeing live in peace and bliss. Do not see anything except
the self and the supreme. This state is known as yoga.
Rooted thus in yoga, carry out your deeds.


The mind of one who is thus rooted in yoga gradually withdraws
from all desires, and the seeker feels blissful while engaging himself
each day in meritorious acts. He has no interest whatsoever
in the contrary efforts of the ignorant.
He never betrays the secrets of one to another;
And he occupies himself solely with lofty deeds.

He performs only such gentle acts as do not disturb others. He fears sin and
does not crave any self-indulgence. He utters loving and affectionate words.
He lives in the company of saints and studies the scriptures. With complete
unity of mind, speech and action he follows them. Seeking to cross
the ocean that is the world,
he cultivates the above-mentioned ideas. And he is called a beginner,
one performing his preliminaries. This is called the first stage.



All the religions which have penetrated very deep – Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, three religions which have penetrated very deep into the soul of man – they all believe in reincarnation. Mohammedanism, Christianity and Judaism don’t believe in reincarnation, but they never worked very hard; they never penetrated the heart of man very deeply. They remained social phenomena, they were more sociopolitical, less religious. The whole history of Islam is sociopolitical, and whenever anybody in the fold of Islam tried to penetrate deeply, he was immediately destroyed and killed.

For example, al-Hillaj Mansoor, he was a man of the same caliber as Buddha, a man who penetrated deeply. When he came to feel that he is Brahman, he is God, he declared it. He said, “Ana’l haq – I am Brahman.”

But this appeared blasphemy to Mohammedans, and they immediately killed him. They said, “This is impossible. At the most you can be a worshipper, but you cannot become God. This is too much, this cannot be tolerated………”
They killed Mansoor, they killed many Sufis. In Islam only Sufis penetrated deeply. Sufism is the central core of Islam, the essential Islam – but Islam killed them. So just to survive Sufis disappeared. They became a secret society and they compromised.
…………..Christianity also remained a sociopolitical phenomenon. It created kingdoms. Even the pope himself became a king, and he still rules a small kingdom, the Vatican. Eckhart, Boehme and Blake were never accepted, the main current never accepted them – and many were destroyed and killed.




……..there is no need to escape to the forest. The Upanishads were never life-negative, remember this. There is a deep misunderstanding in the West, and it has been created by one of the most sincere men of this age, Albert Schweitzer.…….He created the idea in the West that the Upanishads are life-negative……..This is wrong, absolutely wrong. The Upanishads are life-affirming. They don’t say, “Move away from life”; they simply say; “Know the deepest life and then act.”

These Upanishadic rishis were not lifelong brahmacharins, bachelors. They were not: they were married people, they had children, they had their families………..they have not renounced life…..



There are two paths, negative and positive, and you have to choose. Either be totally positive, then you transcend; or be totally negative, then you transcend. Either trust life absolutely, then you go beyond life; or mistrust life absolutely, then also you go beyond life.



…………Both Buddha and Mahavira were more interested in death than in birth. But Hinduism is not negative, and the Upanishads are not negative……….Hinduism affirms life. The rishis were not unmarried men, they were householders




……..in Buddhism and Jainism, desires have to be left consciously, effort has to be made to leave them and when you leave them you will be rooted in yourself. In Hinduism it is just the contrary: get rooted in yourself and desires will leave you. Buddha is negative: leave the desires and you will be rooted in yourself. Hinduism is positive: be rooted in yourself and desires will leave you.

It works both ways – it depends on you. If you are a negative type, a person to whom no comes easily, then follow the negative path………




In Christianity God is something like an aristocrat, something like a dictator………You disobey, and you will suffer and he will punish you. And he is very ferocious in punishment. For small sins…………you will be thrown into hell. And Christianity says that it is forever and forever, the hell is eternal. That doesn’t seem justified……The Christian God cannot be playful. He is serious and ferocious, and he will take revenge. Hinduism cannot conceive of that…………..That is the sin in Christianity – disobedience. In Hinduism there is no question of disobedience or obedience. It is a simple natural law; just as water flows downwards, if you follow natural laws you will be happy. There is no one to decide it, it is a simple happening – if you follow natural laws you will be happy. If you don’t follow natural laws, you go against them, you will be unhappy. Nobody is taking any revenge, and you are not going to be thrown into eternal hell. If you don’t follow, for the time being you will suffer. Immediately you come back to the law the suffering stops.



Now follow the traits of seekers of the second stage,
Called the stage of thought.
He lives in the care of learned men who explain best what
listening, remembering, right conduct, contemplation -
dharana – and meditation are. Having acquired knowledge of such
scriptures as are worth listening to, he efficiently discriminates
between what is duty and what is not, and he knows well the division
between a word and the thing it symbolizes.
His mind does not suffer from an excess of conceit, pride, greed and
attachment, although externally they are apparent to some extent.
He gives up his external impurities as a snake casts off its slough.
Such a seeker acquires the actual
knowledge of all these things with the grace of the scriptures,
the guru, and the sages.








After this the seeker enters the third stage of yoga
which is known as nonattachment. He fixes his mind unwaveringly
on the meaning of scriptural words.
He lives in the monasteries, ashrams, of saints well established
in austerities. He occupies himself with the discussion of the
scriptures and sleeps on a rocky bed. Thus it is that he lives his life.
Because he has attained peace of mind, the man of good conduct
spends his time in the enjoyment of pleasures that come naturally to
him from his excursions into the forest.
He remains detached however, from the objects of desires.
Through the ritual of meritorious deeds and the cultivation of right
scriptures, he attains that clarity of vision which sees reality.
On completing this stage,
the seeker experiences a glimpse of enlightenment



In the West it has been very much misunderstood; they think that these Indian mystics have called the world illusory. They have not called the world illusory, they call the world you have created around you illusory. And everybody has created a world around himself that is not the real world, that is just your projection. You have got attached to certain things, then you project your dreams onto the reality. By nonattachment, reality is not going to be destroyed; only your dreams will be destroyed, and reality will be revealed to you as it is. So nonattachment becomes a very basic step, very foundational.



So fixation of the mind on one content is one of the essential requirements for any seeker – that he should remain with one thought for long periods. Once you can remain with one thought for long periods, you yourself will see that this thought is creating attachment, this thought is creating a world around it, this thought is the basic seed of all illusion. And if you can retain a thought for long periods, you have become the master……….And if you can remain with one thought for long period you can drop it also……..The instrument – mind is just an instrument – has become the soul, and the soul has become the servant. This is the perversion and this is the misery of human beings.



Fixation of the mind will give you a penetrating eye. That eye has been known in the occult world as the third eye.



Animals’ backbones are parallel to the earth, only man has a backbone which is not parallel to the earth but makes an angle of ninety degrees…….created the possibility for the mind to develop………Less blood flows in the head, so the head and the nervous system there can become more delicate and refined. When more blood flows in the head the subtle tissues are broken, they cannot grow.

So don’t do too much shirshasana………..when more blood moves into the had delicate tissues are destroyed, and those delicate tissues are needed for intelligence. When man stood erect the possibility developed for more delicate tissues in the head.
You see primitives sleep without pillows, and they will remain primitives if they continue to sleep without pillows. He may not be healthier, but intelligence needs a certain mechanism in the mind, a very delicate intelligence.



Yoga worked very much on the spine, because yogis became aware of its significance – that the spine is your life…….They worked out many postures, asanas; all their asanas are based on an erect spine, straight. The straighter it is, the more is the possibility to grow in intelligence, awareness.



At the third stage a glimpse comes, but remember well, don’t think that this is enlightenment. And this can happen even through chemical help also……LSD, marijuana, or other drugs………they can force……..a moment clouds disappear; suddenly you are thrown to a point from where the peak can be glimpsed. But this is no attainment……when you come back from the trip you are the same again……….the more you take the less will be the possibility of even the glimpse, because the body gets accustomed and then a greater quantity is needed. Then you are on a path which will lead to insanity and nowhere else.

………..Only sadhana, only spiritual discipline, will help you grow.





There are two kinds of nonattachment:
The ordinary and the sublime.
That attitude of nonattachment to the objects of desire in which the
Seeker knows that he is neither the doer nor the enjoyer,
Neither the restrained not the restrainer, is called ordinary
Nonattachment. He knows that whatever faces him in this life
Is the result of the deeds of his past life.
Whether in pleasure or in pain, he can do nothing.
Indulgence is but a disease and affluence of all kinds a storehouse of
Adversity. Every union leads inevitably to separation.
The ignorant suffer the maladies of mental anxiety.
All material things are perishable, because time is constantly
Devouring them. Through the understanding of scriptural precepts,
One’s faith in material things is unrooted
And one’s mind freed of them.
This is called ordinary nonattachment.


When thoughts like: “I am not the doer, my past deeds are the doers,
Or God himself is the doer,” cease to worry the seeker,
A state of silence, equilibrium and peace is attained.
This is called sublime nonattachment.



With every menses every woman becomes depressed, violent, angry, and her intelligence goes low. It is now proven fact…….
In the East it has been one of the traditions that whenever a woman is in her period she should not make any contact with anybody. She should move into a lonely room and remain closed and meditating for four days, because if she is out mixing with people she will create unnecessary bad karmas and they will create chains. She should not touch food, because she is in such a chaos that the food becomes poisonous.
………A woman in menses should not be in contact with people, it is better if she simply meditates and rests. Such periods are with men also, but they are more subtle……..



It is very difficult, particularly for the Western mind, to understand that life is purposeless. And it is beautiful that it is purposeless………The East says life is not a business, it is a play. And a play has no purpose really, it is nonpurposeful. Or you can say play is its own purpose, to play is enough. Life is not reaching towards some goal, life itself is the goal.



Christians, Jews and Mohammedans are very serious about their god; Hindus are not, they have joked a lot.……You feel that through your humour, your joke, he will be insulted. Your belief is shallow, it is not deep enough. Hindus say that the trust is so much that they can laugh; the trust is so much that just by laughing it cannot be broken………In English we have a word. God-fearing, for religious people. A God-fearing person can never be religious, because if you fear God you cannot love him………with fear there can be a relationship between a slave and a master but there cannot be a love relationship. Hindus, Buddhists have a totally different attitude, and that attitude is different because they think the whole existence is a cosmic play, you can be playful.





On the attainment of the fifth state, the mind of the seeker ceases,
like clouds in an autumn sky, and only truth remains.
In this stage, worldly desires do not arise at all.
During this state all thoughts of division in the seeker are stilled
and he remains rooted in nonduality.
On the disappearance of the feeling of division, the fifth stage,
known as the sushuptapad – sleeping -
draws the enlightened seeker into its nature.
He is perpetually introverted and looks tired and sleepy,
even though externally he continues his everyday activities.
On the accompaniment of this stage, the desire-free seeker enters
the sixth one. Both truth and untruth, both egoism and egolessness
and all sorts of mentations cease to exist in this state,
and rooted in pure nonduality, the seeker is free from fear.
As the entanglements of his heart dissolve, so all his doubts drop.
This is the moment when he is completely emptied of all thought.
Without attaining nirvana, he is in a nirvana-like state
and becomes free while yet dwelling in the body.
This state is like that of the motionless flame of a lamp.
and then comes the seventh stage.



After the third stage everything becomes spontaneous……….The first three you have to force to happen, they will not happen by themselves. After the third you have to allow them to happen, if you don’t allow they will not happen.



A person who is in the fifth stage will have many difficulties in the world because he will move sleepily. He is constantly deep in his nature, as is fast asleep. He will have to make effort to be awake. He will be introverted, he will not be interested in the outside world…….eyes……..will be droopy, tired…………His face will show the same state as that of a hypnotized medium. The face will be relaxed, as if he can fall any moment into sleep. He will become just like a child again…………….He has to be taken care of just like a child. He will be asleep and you need not disturb him, because the more he remains in this state the sooner the sixth will follow……….This is what Jesus says: “Unless you become like children again, you will not enter into the kingdom of my God.” The fifth stage will make you again a child.



……..in the fifth untruth disappears, truth remains. In the sixth even truth disappears…….Ego disappears in the fifth………..In the sixth stage ego disappears, egolessness also.



In this seventh stage, the stage of videhamukti,
liberation while living in the body is achieved. This stage is totally silent
and cannot be communicated in words.
It is the end of all stages, where all the processes of yoga come to their
conclusion. In this stage, all activities – worldly, bodily and scriptural -
cease. The whole universe in the form of the world – viswa,
intelligence – prajna, and radiance – tejas, is just aum.
There is no division here between speech and the speaker.
If however any such division remains, the state has not been attained.
The first sound ‘a’ of aum, stands for the world,
the second ‘u’ for radiance and the third ‘m’ for intelligence.


Before entering samadhi, the seeker should contemplate on aum most
strenuously, and subsequently he should surrender everything, from gross to
subtle to the conscious self. Taking the conscious self as his own self,
he should consolidate this feeling: I am eternal, pure, enlightened, free,
existential, incomparable, the most blissful Vasudeva and Pranava himself.


Since the whole visible world comprising a beginning, a middle and an end,
is sorrow-stricken, he must renounce everything
and merge into the supreme. He should feel that he is blissful,
taintless, without ignorance, without appearance,
inexpressible in words, and that he is Brahman,
the essence of knowledge.


This is the Upanishadic mystery.