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Part VII : Silent Satsangs and the Dhammapada
In June 1979 Osho conducts a ten-day experiment in silent communion,
satsangs with music and sitting meditation instead of discourses.
On 21st June Osho introduces his 12-part series of commentaries
on Gautama Buddha's Dhammapada.
My beloved bodhisattvas…. Yes, that's how I look at you.
That's how you have to start looking at yourselves. Bodhisattva
means a buddha in essence, a buddha in seed, a buddha asleep,
but with all the potential to be awake. In that sense everybody
is a bodhisattva, but not everybody can be called a bodhisattva—only
those who have started groping for the light, who have started
longing for the dawn, in whose hearts the seed is no longer a
seed but has become a sprout, has started growing.
You are bodhisattvas because of your longing to be conscious,
to be alert, because of your quest for the truth. The truth is
not far away, but there are very few fortunate ones in the world
who long for it. It is not far away but it is arduous, it is hard
to achieve. It is hard to achieve, not because of its nature,
but because of our investment in lies….
You have moved towards that risk. You have taken a few steps—staggering,
stumbling, groping, haltingly, with many doubts, but still you
have taken a few steps; hence I call you bodhisattvas.
And The Dhammapada, the teaching of Gautama the Buddha, can
only be taught to the bodhisattvas. It cannot be taught to the
ordinary, mediocre humanity, because it cannot be understood by
them.
These words of Buddha come from eternal silence. They can reach
you only if you receive them in silence. These words of Buddha
come from immense purity. Unless you become a vehicle, a receptacle,
humble, egoless, alert, aware, you will not be able to understand
them. Intellectually you will understand them—they are very
simple words, the simplest possible. But their very simplicity
is a problem, because you are not simple. To understand simplicity
you need simplicity of the heart, because only the simple heart
can understand the simple truth. Only the pure can understand
that which has come out of purity.
I have waited long…now the time is ripe, you are ready.
The seeds can be sown. These tremendously important words can
be uttered again….
My talking on Buddha is not just a commentary: it is creating
a bridge. Buddha is one of the most important masters who has
ever existed on the earth—incomparable, unique. And if you
can have a taste of his being, you will be infinitely benefited,
blessed.
I am immensely glad, because after these ten days of silence
I can say to you that many of you are now ready to commune with
me in silence. That is the ultimate in communication. Words are
inadequate; words say, but only partially. Silence communes totally.
And to use words is a dangerous game too, because the meaning
will remain with me, only the word will reach you; and you will
give it your own meaning, your own color. It will not contain
the same truth that it was meant to contain. It will contain something
else, something far poorer. It will contain your meaning, not
my meaning. You can distort language—in fact it is almost
impossible to avoid distortion—but you cannot distort silence.
Either you understand or you don't understand.
And for these ten days there were only two categories of people
here: those who understood and those who did not. But there was
not a single person who misunderstood. You cannot misunderstand
silence—that's the beauty of silence. The demarcation is
absolute: either you understand or, simply, you don't understand—there
is nothing to misunderstand.
With words the case is just the opposite: it is very difficult
to understand, it is very difficult to understand that you don't
understand; these two are almost impossibilities. And the third
is the only possibility: misunderstanding.
These ten days have been of strange beauty, and of a mysterious
majesty too. I no longer really belong to this shore. My ship
has been waiting for me for a long time—I should have gone.
It is a miracle that I am still in the body. The whole credit
goes to you: to your love, to your prayers, to your longing. You
would like me to linger a little while longer on this shore, hence
the impossible has become possible.
These ten days, I was not feeling together with my body. I was
feeling very uprooted, dislocated. It is strange to be in the
body when you don't feel that you are in the body. And it is also
strange to go on living in a place which no longer belongs to
you—my home is on the other shore. And the call comes persistently.
But because you need me, it is the compassion of the universe—you
can call it God's compassion—that is allowing me to be in
the body a little more.
It was strange, it was beautiful, it was mysterious, it was
majestic, it was magical. And many of you have felt it. Many of
you have felt it in different ways. A few have felt it as a very
frightening phenomenon, as if death is knocking on the door. A
few have felt it as a great confusion. A few have felt shocked,
utterly shocked. But everybody has been touched in some way or
other.
Only the newcomers were a little at a loss—they could
not comprehend what was going on. But I feel thankful to them
too. Although they could not understand what was going on, they
waited—they were waiting for me to speak, they were waiting
for me to say something, they were hoping. Many were afraid that
I might not speak ever again…that was also a possibility.
I was not certain myself.
Words are becoming more and more difficult for me. They are
becoming more and more of an effort. I have to say something so
I go on saying something to you. But I would like you to get ready
as soon as possible so that we can simply sit in silence…listening
to the birds and their songs…or listening just to your own
heartbeat…just being here, doing nothing….
Get ready as soon as possible, because I may stop speaking any
day. And let the news be spread to all the nooks and corners of
the world: those who want to understand me only through the words,
they should come soon, because I may stop speaking any day. Unpredictably,
any day, it may happen—it may happen even in the middle
of a sentence. Then I am not going to complete the sentence! Then
it will hang forever and forever…incomplete.
But this time you have pulled me back.
These sayings of Buddha are called The Dhammapada.… dh0101
The meditation that prevailed for ten days was with a difference—and
that is the difference between Buddha's and my approach—a
little difference, but of tremendous import. And that has to be
understood by you, because I am not a mere commentator on Buddha.
I am not only echoing him, I am not simply a mirror to reflect
him; I am a response, not a reflection. I am not a scholar, I
am not going to make a scholarly analysis of his statements—I
am a poet!
I have seen the same nothingness that he has seen, and, certainly,
I have seen it in my own way. Buddha has his own way, I have my
own way—of seeing, of being. Both ways reach the same peak,
but the ways are different. My way has a little difference—little,
but of profound import, remember.
These ten days were not only of silent meditation—these
ten days were of music, silence, and meditation. Music is my contribution
to it. Buddha would not have allowed it. On that point we would
have quarreled. He would not have allowed music; he would have
said that music is a disturbance. He would have insisted on pure
silence, he would have said that is enough. But that is where
we agree to disagree.
To me, music and meditation are two aspects of the same phenomenon.
And without music, meditation lacks something; without music,
meditation is a little dull, unalive. Without meditation, music
is simply noise—harmonious, but noise. Without meditation,
music is an entertainment. And without music, meditation becomes
more and more negative, tends to be death-oriented.
Hence my insistence that music and meditation should go together.
That adds a new dimension—to both. Both are enriched by
it….
I started these Buddha lectures with a ten-day silence deliberately.
It was a device to start with silence—Buddha would have
been very happy. He must have shrugged his shoulders a little
bit because of the music, but what can I do? It can't be helped.
My religion has to be a religion of dance, love, laughter. It
has to be life-oriented, it has to be life-affirmative. It has
to be a love affair with life. It is not a renunciation but a
rejoicing. dh0102
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