Osho - Method is awareness. There are many illnesses but there is only one health. The quality of health is one, always the same. Whether I am healthy or you are healthy, the feel of health is the same. Diseases are millions, wrongs are many, but the right key that unlocks all the doors, the master key, is only one. And rather than cutting the branches, rather than pruning the leaves, why not cut the very root? There are many people who go on pruning the leaves or cutting the branches; these people are known as moralists.
The moral person is a little-bit-stupid person, stupid in the sense that he thinks that by cutting the leaves he is going to destroy the tree. He is not going to destroy the tree this way. You cut one leaf and the tree will respond with three leaves instead, the foliage will become thicker. You cut one branch and the tree will pour its sap and juices into another branch, and the other branch will become thicker and bigger. This is what happens in your life.
Somebody is against sex; he represses sex, he cuts that branch. Now the whole energy becomes anger. You will find stories in Indian scriptures, stories like the story of Durvasa -- a great so-called mahatma who repressed his sex totally, and then became all anger, just red-hot anger. It is bound to happen. You cannot destroy any energy -- never. It is not possible in the very nature of things.
Energies can only be transformed, never destroyed. If you close one outlet, the energy will start flowing from another. If you close the front door, then from the back door... and from the back door it is more dangerous, because it makes your life the life of a hypocrite, it makes your life double. You start living in a dual way: you say one thing, you do another; you show one thing, you are another. You become more and more split.
My emphasis is also exactly the same as Atisha's. You come to me with a thousand and one problems, but my answer is always the same. If you come with anger I say be aware of it, if you come with greed I say be aware of it, if you come with lust I say be aware of it -- because awareness cuts the very root. What is the root? Unawareness is the root.
One can be angry only if he is unaware. Try to be angry and aware together and you will find it impossible. Either you will be aware, then anger will not be found, or you will be angry and awareness will have disappeared. Up to now, nobody has been able to manage both together, and I don't think you can prove the exception. Try it. It is possible you may think both are happening, but if you minutely watch you will see: when awareness is there anger is not, when anger is there awareness is not. Unawareness is the root of all illnesses; then awareness is the only medicine.
Buddha says, "I am a physician." And once somebody asked, "You again and
again say you are a physician, but I don't see any medicines around you.
What medicines do you give?"
He said, "My medicine is only one: it is awareness. I prescribe
awareness." And it has not to be brought from the chemist; you have to
change your inner chemistry to bring it. You have to change your inner
chemistry. Right now your inner chemistry functions in such a way that
it produces unawareness, unconsciousness. It can be changed, it can be
deautomatized. How to do it you will find in the sutras that are to
follow.
But remember, one method is enough to correct all wrong. That method is awareness. And how will you know that you have attained it? Awareness is something inner, it is so deep that nobody can see it. Still, if you become aware, everybody who has a little intelligence, who has eyes to see, will become aware of it -- because as awareness happens at the inner core, compassion starts radiating, love starts radiating.
Buddha says: Light the candle of awareness in your heart, and your whole
being will radiate compassion. Compassion is the proof. Unless
compassion happens, remember, you must be deceiving yourself; you must
be doing something else than being aware.
For example, you can try concentration. Concentration is not awareness,
and the person of concentration will never show compassion. Compassion
is not a consequence of concentration.
Concentration means the focusing
of the mind, the narrowing of the mind on only one point. The
concentrated mind becomes a very powerful mind -- but remember it is
mind, and very powerful, hence more dangerous than ever. Concentration
is the method of science.
Awareness is totally different; it is not focusing, it is unfocused
alertness. For example, right now you are listening to me. You can hear
in a concentrated way, you can be focused on me; then you will miss the
birds and their songs, then you will miss this noise on the road. Then
you are not aware, then your mind has become very narrow. Awareness is
not the narrowing of the mind but the disappearance of the mind.
The narrowing of the mind makes the mind more of a mind -- hence the Hindu mind is more of a mind, the Mohammedan mind is more of a mind, the communist mind is more of a mind, because these are all narrowing. Somebody is focused on Das Kapital or the Communist Manifesto, somebody is focused on the Koran or on the Dhammapada, somebody on the Gita, somebody on The Bible -- focused people. They create narrow minds in the world. They create conflict, they don't bring compassion.
For thousands of years religions have existed, but compassion is still a dream. We have not been able to create a world that knows what love is, friendship is, brotherhood is. Yes, we talk, and we talk too much about all these beautiful things. In fact the talk has become nauseating, it is sickening. It should stop. No more talk of brotherhood and love and this and that -- we have talked for thousands of years for no purpose.
The reason is that the concentrated mind becomes narrow, becomes more of a mind. And love is not the function of the mind, love is the function of no-mind -- or call it heart, which means the same. No-mind and heart are synonymous.
Awareness means to listen to me unfocused -- alert of course, not fallen asleep, but alert to these birds, their chirping, alert to the wind that passes through the trees, alert to everything that is happening. Concentration excludes much, includes little. Awareness excludes nothing, includes all.
Awareness is a state of no-mind. You are, yet you are not focused. You are just a mirror reflecting all, echoing all; see the beauty of it and the silence and the stillness. Suddenly you are and you are not, and the miracle starts happening. In this silence you will feel a compassion, compassion for all suffering beings. It has not to be practiced either; it comes on its own.
Atisha says: Awareness inside, compassion on the outside. Compassion is the outer side of awareness, the exterior of awareness. Awareness is your interiority, subjectivity. Compassion is relating with others, sharing with others.
Source - Osho Book "The Book of Wisdom"
Meditation Quotes Home
Related Osho Discourses on Meditation