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Part X : 1987-1990 Poona-Two : Osho talks
about Music
Since the move to Buddha Hall, there is space for a larger group
of musicians, instruments from around the world, and better electronic
equipment. Osho guides the musicians on how he wishes them to
play before and after discourse
I hear your blessed music, but I don't see your guitar. Beloved
Master, what is your instrument?
Milarepa, neither the music is mine nor the guitar. The music
belongs to existence, and the guitar belongs to you. You are the
guitar, and this whole vast universe is the music.
I am at the most just a passage for the music to reach to the
guitar. That's why you don't see my guitar—because you don't
see yourself. Who are you? On whom am I playing my music? You
hear my words and you also hear my silences, and naturally you
feel a certain music surrounding me. That music is your response,
your love, your trust.
In a way I am not here. It has been a long time since I left
this small house for the eternity. It is the compassion of eternity
that this small house still goes on continuing to function. It
is also your love, your prayers, your gratitude that helps my
body-mind system to function. I don't have any desire to be fulfilled.
All is fulfilled—and when all is fulfilled a music arises.
I don't have any ambition….
We take the present moment and squeeze the whole juice of it—that's
our religion. Wherever we will be, one thing is certain: we will
recognize each other just by the style of squeezing the juice
from the present moment.
Faces may be different, planets may be different, that does not
mean anything. We have a key to recognize our people: in their
eyes, in their faces, they are always existential.
Milarepa, you are my instrument. Your guitar is my guitar. Your
fingers playing on the instruments are my fingers. Can't you allow
that?…
Milarepa, you hear my music; that music comes from the beyond.
I cannot claim any monopoly, any copyright on it. And you want
to see my guitar—just look at your guitar, just look at
your hands. In deep love a synchronicity happens. You start doing
things which my deepest being wanted to do, but I don't know music;
I cannot even recognize which is a guitar and which is a harmonium
and which is a saxophone.
I have never been a singer, not even a bathroom singer. I have
lived in many houses in this country with many friends, and many
times people have asked, "At least we were thinking you will
be singing in the bathroom, but you don't sing?"
I don't know singing…I am a song. I don't know singing—you
will have to sing in me. You will have to allow yourself to be
totally available to me.
You can dance and it will be my dance.
You can sing and it will be my song.
You can play on instruments, but your fingers will be in synchronicity
with me, and I am in synchronicity with the whole. So it is just
formal to say that you are my songs, that you are my music. I
am just a small passage; the beyond comes through me to your eyes.
And because it is of the beyond it has a tremendous capacity to
transform you.
I have not said a single word to you on my own; hence I can
claim originality in the literal sense of the word. Ordinarily
originality means nobody else has said it, only I am saying it;
that is using the word wrongly. Originality should mean it is
coming from the origins…origins of life, origins of love,
origins of existence. pilgr06
You shower me with love and I am so ashamed, I can't look at
you sometimes. Inside I know I don't have anything to give you,
and what little there is feels so inadequate. Master, my heart
is broken. Please help me.
Milarepa, your question surprises me, because you give so much
love to me. You have given yourself to me—your music, your
poetry, your dance. What can be more valuable? You have trusted
me—a stranger. What more can there be that you should feel
ashamed? You should rejoice, because all that you had, you have
given to me, without holding anything back. You have given your
heart.
But perhaps you don't think that your songs, your music, your
dance, your love, your trust, have any. But perhaps you don't
think that your songs, your music, your dance, your love, your
trust, have any value. They certainly are of the greatest value—although
they don't have any price.
You are not poor. Just not to have money does not make a man
poor; not to have power, not to be a president or a prime minister
of a country, does not make a man poor. What makes a man poor
is not to have a soul. And your soul is so full of songs, so full
of dance, so full of laughter—there is no question of your
feeling ashamed. You have given to me the richest gifts that anyone
can give. But perhaps you have not thought of it in this way.
There are some of the richest people in the world who are so
poor inside that all their money cannot make any difference. Their
money is outside, and their poverty is inside—anything from
the outside cannot destroy the inner poverty. The inner poverty
is destroyed only by inner. There are some of the richest people
in the world who are so poor inside that all their money cannot
make any difference. Their money is outside, and their poverty
is inside—anything from the outside cannot destroy the inner
poverty. The inner poverty is destroyed only by inner values:
love, compassion, silence, prayer, meditation—these are
the things that make a person really rich. He may be just a beggar
on the street, it does not matter, but even emperors will find
themselves jealous of him.
You are misunderstanding. Put things right…. splend18
In February begins a series of remarkable concerts by world famous
Indian classical musicians, dancers, and poets, who perform out
of their love for Osho, and for the meditative atmosphere of the
ashram. Musicians include Pundit Hari Prasad Chaurasia, flautist,
Ustad Zakir Hussein, tabla-player, Pandit Shivkumar, on santoor
Music is not something biological; it is not something concerned
with your chemistry or physiology. Music is not even of the mind.
Music is something…a space between mind and meditation.
It is one of the most mysterious phenomena. To conceive of it
in intellectual terms is almost impossible for the simple reason
that it is beyond mind—but it is not yet meditation.
Music can become meditation—it has both possibilities—it
can come down and become mind. Then you are only a technician,
not a musician. You may be playing perfectly on the instruments,
without any faults, but still you are only a technician. You know
the technique perfectly and entirely, but it is not your heart
and it is not your being; it is just your knowledge.
Music can go higher and further away from mind, and then it
starts becoming closer and closer to peace and silence. One is
a musician only when he understands the sound of silence, and
one who understands the sound of silence is capable of creating
sounds which are synonymous with silence. That is the most miraculous
thing. Then the musician has come to his full flowering. Beyond
this music starts the world of meditation.
In fact, as far as the East is concerned, the ancientmost sources
say one thing definitively about music, and that is that it was
born out of meditation. People who went deep into meditation enjoyed
the silence of it, loved the peace that seems to be unfathomable.
They wanted to convey that you are far more than you think you
are, far bigger than you think you are; you are as big as the
whole universe—but how to say it? Words are very poor philosophical
concepts, almost like beggars.
The ancient meditators tried to find some way to convey their
peace, their silence, their joy, and those were the people who
discovered music. Music is a by-product of meditation.
But you can go both ways: either from meditation you can come
to music as an expression, a creative expression of your experience;
or you can go from music to meditation, because music brings you
closer and closer to meditation as music becomes immense silence,
sounds merging into silence, sounds creating deeper silences than
you have ever known. Then you are very close to the boundary of
your meditation….
Music is not in the same category as sex, although in the West
the modern music has fallen so low that it has come very close
to the category of sex. Only that music is appreciated in the
West which provokes sexuality in you. Sex is the lowest point
of your life energy, and if music is used to provoke sexuality,
then naturally it has to fall to the same category.
Superconsciousness is the highest point of your life energy.
When music reaches superconsciousness, it provokes within you
unknown territories, unexplored skies. It can become a door to
the divine. Just as it can become a door to the animal on the
lowest, on the highest it can become the door to the divine.
Man is only a bridge to be passed. Man is only a bridge between
the animal and the divine. You should not make your house on the
bridge—bridges are not for making houses on—you have
to pass on, from this shore to that further shore. satyam22
Music is your creativity.
But we have lost contact with the authentic music. And slowly
slowly, as humanity has become less and less interested in the
inner world, its music has become lower and lower. The contemporary
music is absolutely the lowest that has ever existed. It touches
you, but it touches you at your lowest center of sexuality. The
contemporary music is sexual, and the classical music was spiritual.
I would like my people to create music on the path of meditation—or
create music if you have found meditation, as a language to express
the silence of it. mani22
Compared to classical music, jazz music is in the lowest category,
because rather than creating a spirituality in you it simply activates
your sexuality. The great classical music takes you higher, beyond
your mind, to silences which can give you a taste of meditation,
a taste of existence.
But always remember that a certain reference in a certain context
does not mean my whole approach to a thing.
You are saying, "This question comes from two jazz musicians.
Is our love of jazz music an obstacle on the path to enlightenment?"
It depends on you. You can make your jazz music free from the
lower gravitation of sexuality. You can make it connected with
your higher centers of being, and then it will not be an obstacle
on the path to enlightenment.
In fact, as far as my people are concerned, they are going to
enter enlightenment with jazz music! It has never been tried;
hence it is a great challenge and must be tried. hari09
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