🍁Osho, The Long, the Short and the All Chapter #1. Knowledge and understanding

 

WHAT SHALL I SAY ABOUT DHARMA, ABOUT RELIGION? Whatever I say will not be religion.

That which is BEYOND words cannot be expressed through speech.

Don't mistake the scriptures for religion; they contain only words.

Words divide.

Words have divided humanity.

The walls that exist between men are not of stone, they are built of words.

And the same wall of words stands between man and truth. Anything that has separated man from truth has separated him from everything.

Words are mantras that have hypnotized us into straying from our authentic natures, from our real selves.

The man who is unfamiliar with himself is far from the truth. This is because the understanding of one's self is the nearest thing there is to truth. Everything else is distant, far removed.

Words hide the self as the waves camouflage the ocean; the turmoil of words shrouds the inner music as smoke smothers a fire.

We spend our lives caught up in exploration of the outer shell, ignoring the man within.

I look inside myself. I see words - thoughts, memories, images, dreams - words.

The real me is buried beneath this layer of words. Is this it? Is this all? Or is there something else within me, beyond this cloud-cover of words?

Everything depends on your answer to this question. If the answer comes from words, from thoughts, then you will never know DHARMA, you will never know what religion is.

Thought is its own limitation.

Generally, in the search for the self, this is where people turn back. They run up against this invisible wall and retrace their steps. It is very frustrating. It is like digging a well and only finding more rocks, more and more stones.

But to be confronted by this layer of stones, of words, is quite natural. This on only an outer layer, only a veil.

To find the self you have to pierce this veil.

You must move on until you arrive face to face with the naked truth.

You must keep on digging through the layers of words until you hit the well of wordlessness.

You must brush away the dust of thoughts until the mirror of the self is reflected.

This is not easy. You not only have to remove your clothes, you also have to strip away your skin. This is penance, this is real atonement.

Have you ever peeled an onion? You have to peel yourself like that. After the layers and layers of peel have been removed the essence remains. That is you authentic being. That is you.

You have to drive all thoughts away; you have to know to recognize, to understand everything that is not you.

You have to dive deep.

And there is to be no choosing between good and bad. These are intellectual evaluations and do not lead beyond thought.

This is the difference between morality and religion. Morality is the selection of what is good, as opposed to what is bad.

In religion, there is no selection; religion is beyond all choice.

When there is nothing left to choose, all that remains is one's self. When a man becomes free of choice, thought evaporates. And only awareness remains. There is no object any more, there is only consciousness.

At this point the wisdom that has always been latent in you manifests itself, and the gates of religion are thrown open to you.

I invite you to meet your self. What the scriptures cannot give you is already within you.

What no one else can give you, you can attain yourself.

The truth is realised as soon as you go beyond words.