Technique:The Invisible World (The Five Prerequisites)

We've had a Jesus, a Buddha, a Krishna, many others, many Bhodhisatvas, who have come back to bring peace to this world. Yet it has never happened. How come? Why can there not be peace in this world? The greatest of souls have tried to bring this peace here, yet for some strange reason they have all missed the point. This world is not a world of peace. There have been periods when there has been peace for a while. They didn't last long, and there were wars again, man's inhumanity to man, strife, confusion.

These great souls, for some strange reason, did not realize that there is another world interpenetrating this world, the real world, the invisible world, where there is total bliss, total love, infinite peace. This true world is called consciousness, for want of a better term. It is the state of absolute reality, yet it is the invisible world. The same thing exists in each one of us. In each being, in each animal, in each plant, in each mineral, in each vegetable, there is an inner force. There is consciousness, the reality of all substance.

Only human beings, so-to-speak, are able to transcend their humanity and rise above the so-called relative world, relative universe. Yet there have been very few who actually were able to see this. These very few beings, these very few people, would be considered selfish by most people, for they exclaimed, leave the world alone. Do not concern yourself with the world. The world is an illusion. Dive deep within yourself. Find yourself. If you discover the world within yourself, the invisible world, that is, which is the Self, then you will see what the rest of this world really is.

But there have been those few people who somehow felt something within them, that there is a reality that knows absolutely nothing about this world. They cannot explain it but they feel it. And they begin to do the work required in order to transcend and transmute the entire universe, becoming free and liberated. They gave a name to these people, Jnanis, Sages, Masters. These beings, just by being themselves, become an asset to the world and to those who are ready to follow those steps.

We can never have real happiness as long as we believe the world is real. It's impossible! Due to the fact everything changes. No thing is ever the same and that is very evident. The whole universe is constantly changing. How can we have faith or believe in something like this, that is never the same? We have to make up our minds. Do we want to find reality or do we want to keep running around the world, becoming enthralled in the beginning, and disappointed in the end?

We begin to see it is the mind that keeps us in bondage. It is the mind that creates the body, the world and the universe. We cannot change other people. We've tried. It doesn't work. We cannot change the world condition. We've tried. It doesn't work. It makes no difference whom we elect president or what happens in the world. The conditions might change but there will never be a harmony and peace in this world.

It is only as we transcend and transmute the mind that we see something else. We actually see something else. We live in a different world. This is the reason I appear strange to some people, to most people, to all the people. I may see an accident, somebody dying. I will render assistance but I will be happy, for I do not see death as it appears. For some reason I look through that into the invisible world where there is joy and laughter, where there is peace and harmony.

What do you see? As you look in this world what do you see? You're seeing the result of your mind. Your mind has been conditioned since you were born. Not only that, but you have a mind that has been through many lives, so it appears. You've had many existences and many worlds as a male, as a female, and you're under the laws of karma.

A Jnani has absolutely nothing to do with this world. The world, the universe, becomes totally meaningless to a Sage. It's not a put on. It's not imagining that, "All is well," until some catastrophe hits you, and then you get upset, become violent, feel sorry for yourself, become depressed. You have to see where your at, where you're coming from, what you're really made of. You can never know the truth, that there is no world, there is no universe, there is no God, as long as you believe the body suffers, mentally or physically. Have you suffered mentally or physically today?

If you really want to become a part of those few people in this world that have transcended the world, you have to do what they did.

The first prerequisite: Shut up. Be quiet. Stop debating. Stop arguing. Stop trying to prove a point. Even if someone knows something that you don't, whether they share it with you or not, makes no difference, for you have to come up with your own truth. There's really no one in this universe that can hand you realization on a silver platter.

Number two: You have to let go. You have to let go so completely that it becomes scary. You have to totally let go mentally. You have to stop depending on person, place or thing for your self-worth. You have to start depending on the infinite invisible, on what you cannot see, taste, touch, or smell or feel.

Number three: You must look at the world but never react to anything. You must watch your feelings and your emotions, observe them, and as they come into contact with you, you must become the witness, realizing that you are not those emotions. You are not your bad temper. You are not the depression. You are nothing that goes on in this world.

Number four: You must develop a tremendous humility, a stupendous humility. This is more important than anything else. If someone tells you something that you don't like to hear you do not become upset. You do not hold it in. You let it go through you and it dissipates, for it has no energy except the energy you give it. You are responsible to yourself. If you fool yourself you're just going to get disgusted in the end and give up all spiritual life, for you'll say you've gotten nowhere, nothing has happened, it doesn't work. It doesn't exist.

I suppose this is the reason I am with you. To tell you, "Yes, there is an invisible realm of perfection beyond this world, interpenetrating this world, that makes this world look like kindergarten." Yet you must be able to see it yourself.

Number five: You have to want it so much that you don't want it. You have to have such a strong desire to be free that all desire stops. When all desire stops there is a quietness, a stillness, that takes place within you. It is only when this stillness, this quietness, comes when you're able to see clearly, not with your physical eyes, but with your spiritual eye, not with your little I, not with the I-thought, but with the I-am. And you will see in all directions. You will see up, you will see down, you will see sideways, you will see backwards. The only thing you will see is total perfection which is another name for pure awareness. You have to take this thing seriously and you're not to be serious about this thing at all. You have to reject everything yet you also have to accept everything. You have to surrender and you have to realize that you are the Self.

There is something inside of you that knows how to do all this. You can help by becoming quiet, by becoming still, by not making a lot of noise, not making a big commotion. Let the world do what it will, yet you become silent and peaceful, compassionate, have humility. Just watch, look, observe, quiet the mind. Be still and know that I am God.
.... Those who have been trying to tell us to go within, and the change must come from within, are the true teachers. But those who try to improve the world and try to improve the world to make this a better world, have not tasted ultimate reality.

Transcending is when you go from step to step. You go higher and higher. But transmuting is when you do it all at once. The brain chemical changes to begin with. The brain chemical changes to begin with. The entire programming of the brain gives up to the mind, lets go. All the programming disappears. The eons of programming, the past, is dead. It becomes totally annihilated.

Many beings have awakened simply by looking at the situation, observing it, intelligently focusing on it, and awakening can occur. You see through the maya.

-Robert Adams, The Collected Works

Self is all-pervading, Your true nature

When you discover you are the Self, remember the Self is all-pervading. Absolute reality is omnipresence. Therefore everything is taking place within you. All the so-called actions of the universe are taking place within you because you are self-contained consciousness. That's why there's nothing you can really do, as self-contained consciousness, for you occupy every space, every atom, every universe, and you permeate what appears to be creation. There's nowhere for you to go because there's no room. There's nothing else. There's no space. Space is only for the body, the mind. But when you discover that you're pure awareness there is no space. You encompass all in all. This is the reason why there's nowhere to go and there's nothing to do.

It's like you're a gigantic screen that takes up the entire universe, it is the universe, that takes up all of space. Yet forms appear on the screen. The forms appear on the screen and there's a lot of space between them. The forms appear to be going places, doing things, working, being born and dying, but you are that eternal screen, unflinching, immovable, sat-chit-ananda, parabrahman, and the whole play of consciousness is taking place on the screen, all within yourself. There's no place for the screen to go because it already takes up all the space there is. The only movement there is, is in the images on the screen. But the screen itself has no room where to go, what to do. It just is as it is. That's the way it is. Your true nature is absolute reality, the screen. 

There's nothing you have to do when you understand that you are omnipresence. There's no room for karma, or for sins, or for anything else.

The game is being played by the beings who are projected on the screen. They're going through karma because they have a lot of space. They can go through all kinds of things if there's space. They're going through different experiences of birth and death, of happy and sad, of healthy and sick, of poverty and riches. The images are going through these things. Then they die and they appear to be born again in different lives, and the game continues for ever. 

But you are consciousness, you are the screen, and you remain the same, always. There never was a time when you were different. There never will be a time when you change. Consciousness is consciousness. The Self is the Self. It has no manifestations, no attributes. It just is. That is your true nature.
-Robert Adams, You are No-Thing, The Collected Works

Story:Yayati from Upanishads

A great king named Yayati became one hundred years old. Now it was enough; he had lived tremendously. He had enjoyed all that life could make available. He was one of the greatest kings of his time. But the story is beautiful ....

Death came and said to Yayati, "Get ready. It is time for you, and I have come to take you." Yayati saw Death, and he was a great warrior and he had won many wars. Yayati started trembling, and said, "But it is too early." Death said, "Too early! You have been alive for one hundred years. Even your children have become old. Your eldest son is eighty years old. What more do you want?"

Yayati had one hundred sons because he had one hundred wives. He asked Death, "Can you do a favor for me? I know you have to take someone. If I can persuade one of my sons, can you leave me for one hundred years more and take one of my sons?" Death said, "That is perfectly okay if somebody else is ready to go. But I don't think .... If you are not ready, and you are the father and you have lived more and you have enjoyed everything, why should your son be ready?"

Yayati called his one hundred sons. The older sons remained silent. There was great silence, nobody was saying anything. Only one, the youngest son who was only sixteen years of age, stood up and he said, "I am ready." Even Death felt sorry for the boy and said to the young man, "Perhaps you are too innocent.

Can't you see your ninety-nine brothers are absolutely silent? Someone is eighty, someone is seventy-five, someone is seventy-eight, someone is seventy, someone is sixty -- they have lived -- but they still want to live. And you have not lived at all. Even I feel sad to take you. You think again."

The boy said, "No, just seeing the situation makes me completely certain. Don't feel sad or sorry; I am going with absolute awareness. I can see that if my father is not satisfied in one hundred years, what is the point of being here? How can I be satisfied? I am seeing my ninety-nine brothers; nobody is satisfied. So why waste time? At least I can do this favor to my father. In his old age, let him enjoy one hundred years more. But I am finished. Seeing the situation that nobody is satisfied, I can understand one thing completely -- that even if I live one hundred years, I will not be satisfied either. So it doesn't matter whether I go today or after ninety years. You just take me."

Death took the boy. And after one hundred years he came back. And Yayati was in the same position. And he said, "These hundred years passed so soon. All my old sons have died, but I have another regiment. I can give you some son. Just have mercy on me."

It went on -- the story goes on to say -- for one thousand years. Ten times Death came. And nine times he took some son and Yayati lived one hundred years more. The tenth time Yayati said, "Although I am still as unsatisfied as I was when you came for the first time, now -- although unwillingly, reluctantly -- I will go, because I cannot go on asking for favors. It is too much. And one thing has become certain to me, that if one thousand years cannot help me to be contented, then even ten thousand will not do."

It is the attachment. You can go on living but as the idea of death strikes you, you will start trembling. But if you are not attached to anything, death can come this very moment and you will be in a very welcoming mood. You will be absolutely ready to go. In front of such a man, death is defeated. Death is defeated only by those who are ready to die any moment, without any reluctance. They become the immortals, they become the buddhas.

This freedom is the goal of all religious search.

Freedom from attachment is freedom from death.

Freedom from attachment is freedom from the wheel of birth and death.

Freedom from attachment makes you capable of entering into the universal light and becoming one with it. And that is the greatest blessing, the ultimate ecstasy beyond which nothing else exists. You have come home.
-Osho, Bodhidharma The Greatest Zen Master 

Technique:Four Principles of Self-Realization

Four Principles of Self-Realization
by Robert Adams

First Principle: You have a feeling, a complete understanding that everything you see, everything in the universe, in the world, emanates from your mind. In other words, you feel this. You do not have to think about it, or try to bring it on. It comes by itself. It becomes a part of you. The realization that everything you see, the universe, people, worms, insects, the mineral kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, your body, your mind, everything that appears, is a manifestation of your mind.

Second Principle: You have a strong feeling, a deep realization, that you are unborn. You are not born, you do not experience a life, and you do not disappear, you do not die ... You exist as I Am. You have always existed and you will always exist. You exist as pure intelligence, as absolute reality. That is your true nature. You exist as sat-chit-ananda. You exist as bliss consciousness ... But you do not exist as the body. You do not exist as person, place or thing.

Third Principle: You are aware and you have a deep understanding of the egolessness of all things; that everything has no ego. I'm not only speaking of sentient beings. I'm speaking of the mineral kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, the animal kingdom, the human kingdom. Nothing has an ego. There is no ego ... It means that everything is sacred. Everything is God. Only when the ego comes, does God disappear ... When there is no ego, you have reverence for everybody and everything ... There is only divine consciousness, and everything becomes divine consciousness.

Fourth Principle: You have a deep understanding, a deep feeling, of what self-realization of noble wisdom really is ... You can never know by trying to find out what it is, because it’s absolute reality. You can only know by finding out what it is not. So you say, it is not my body, it is not my mind, it is not my organs, it is not my thoughts, it is not my world, it is not my universe, it is not the animals, or the trees, or the moon, or the sun, or the stars, it is not any of those things. When you've gone through everything and there's nothing left, that's what it is. Nothing. Emptiness. Nirvana. Ultimate Oneness.

Technique:Zen Meditation

Be silent...

Close your eyes... and feel your bodies to be completely frozen.

This is the right moment to enter in.

With a deep urgency, gather all your energies and consciousness, and rush towards your inner center of being which is just two inches below the navel, inside you.

Faster and faster...

Deeper and deeper...

As you are coming closer to the center, a great silence descends over you, a peace that passeth understanding.

And inside, at the center, you encounter your very self, your very buddha, for the first time. It is only a presence, a light, a flame. This flame is rooted in the eternal fire of existence.

You have been here always, and you will be here always. Only forms change, but the existential truth remains without any change. It is your ultimate being. In this ultimateness you are no more there, but the whole is. The dewdrop has disappeared in the ocean, or the ocean has disappeared in the dewdrop. This is one of the greatest moments to become a witness.

Witness that you are not the body...

Witness that you are not the mind...

Witness that you are only a pure witnessing consciousness....

The deeper this consciousness goes, the closer you are coming to your ultimate nature, the buddha.

Relax into witnessing.

(Drumbeat)

Just a silent witnessing, and all boundaries disappear. And suddenly, Gautama the Buddha Auditorium becomes an ocean of consciousness. Ten thousand buddhas are no longer there, only a single pure fire of awareness. This is your very nature.

Zen is not a religion, it is a manifesto of your very nature.

It is a freedom from all social structures.

It is a freedom even from yourself.

It is pure freedom.

In this freedom, all that is creative arises.

All that is beautiful blossoms... all that is significant.

A grace that you have never been aware of surrounds you.

An aura of light follows you.

Collect all these experiences before Nivedano calls you back.

You are not to become anyone, you have just to dissolve into the totality of existence. In this annihilation, you reach to the highest peak of consciousness. In that peak there is light and there is joy, and there is song and there is dance – but there is no ”I” at all.

Persuade the buddha, the flame, to come behind you. It has been hiding inside your being since eternity. You have never explored the inner space, otherwise there is no need of any religion, and no need of any temple.

This very body becomes the temple.

And this very consciousness becomes the buddha.

These are the three small steps....

First, request the buddha, the internal and the eternal flame to follow you, to become part of your ordinary day-to-day life.

In the second step, you start becoming a shadow to the buddha. He takes you over; you start disappearing.

In the third step, even your shadow is no longer there, only a pure presence of the buddha.

This is not an achievement, you are already it – you have forgotten the language.

The Zen Manifesto is simply to remind you.

The last words of Gautam Buddha were: sammasati – ”remember.”

In a single word, everything significant is contained: sammasati.

(Drumbeat)

Come back, but come back as buddhas – peaceful, silent, relaxed.

Just for a few seconds sit down with closed eyes to remember, to make a note of where you have been, to what depth you have been able to reach; what is the taste of silence, peace, what is the taste of disappearing into the ultimate...

The last words of Gautam Buddha contain the Zen Manifesto: sammasati. Remember what is your inner space. Just remember.

There is nothing to achieve, and there is nothing to become. You are already that which you have been seeking in all your lives in different ways, on different paths. But you have never looked inwards.

Look in. And whenever you have time, you know the path. Just go again and again to the inner space so that your fear of disappearing is dropped, you start enjoying being nobody, and you start remembering the forgotten language.

Sammasati...
-Osho, Zen Manifesto

Story:What is Reality?

The monk, who is asking the Master, "What is reality, what is reality," and the Master said go pick a fig. And he picked a fig off a tree and the Master said, "open the fig" and the monk did. And the Master said, "Cut open the seed" and he cut open the seed and he said, "what do you see?" And the monk said, "Emptiness," and the Master said, "that's true, everything comes from emptiness," because in the fig seed there is a hollow, there is nothing. So out of the nothingness came the fig tree and so has everything else.
-Robert Adams, Complete Works. 

Story:Inner Voice

One man in America started believing that he was Abraham Lincoln. Every effort was made, but he would stutter just the way Abraham Lincoln used to stutter and he would walk the way Abraham Lincoln used to walk – he was a little lame. And his face was very similar and he had grown the beard. The family was tired. Finally, they took him to a psychiatrist, who used a lie detector.

There exists a machine now that can detect lies. You don’t know it but it may be hidden just underneath you – you may be standing on top of it. It is like a cardiogram. A few questions are asked – very simple, no possibility for lying – such as ”What do you think, is it day or night?” And then the man naturally says, ”It is day.”

”What do you think, are the trees green or blue?” The man naturally says, ”They are green.” A few questions were asked in which he could not lie, and the detector was making a harmonious graph. Then suddenly the psychiatrist asked him, ”Are you Abraham Lincoln?”

The man was getting tired; everybody was making a laughingstock of him. The family thought that he had gone insane and he was being dragged to this doctor, to that psychoanalyst. So finally he dropped the idea. He thought, ”It is better to lie.” He said, ”I am not Abraham Lincoln.” The family was surprised. But the lie detector said that he was lying, because deep in his heart he knew perfectly well he was Abraham Lincoln.

Copying, imitation, can go so deep.

Although he was saying that he was not Abraham Lincoln – and he was not Abraham Lincoln – the machine was detecting his heartbeats and making a graph, so suddenly when he said, ”I am not Abraham Lincoln,” the graph went berserk. It lost its harmony.

The voices of the parents and the teachers, the society and the priest, become louder and louder. Now if you want to find out what is your voice, you will have to pass through a crowd of noises.

It is a tremendously beautiful experiment for meditators just to watch inside – whose voice is this? Sometimes it is your father, sometimes it is your mother, sometimes it is your grandfather, sometimes it is your teacher; and those voices are all different. Just one thing you will not be able to find easily – your own voice; it has been always suppressed. You have been told to listen to your elders, to listen to the priest, to listen to the teachers. You have never been told to listen to your own heart.

You are carrying a still, small voice of your own, unheard, and in the crowd of voices that have been imposed upon you, it is almost impossible to find it. First you will have to get rid of all those noises, attain a certain quality of silence, peace, serenity. Only then will it come, as a surprise, that you also have your own voice. It was always there like an undercurrent.

Unless you have found your natural inclination your life is going to be a long, long tragedy, from the cradle to the grave. The only people who have been blissful in the world are the people who have lived according to their own intuition and have rebelled against any effort by others to impose their ideas. Howsoever valuable those ideas may be, they are useless because they are not yours. The only significant idea is that which arises in you, grows in you, blossoms in you.

Everybody is born a rebel because everybody is born to be an individual in his own right. Everybody is born not to be a part in a drama but to live an authentic life, not to be a mask but to be his original face.

-Osho