THE ETERNAL MESSAGE

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

Editing:

Swami Yoga Chinmaya

A Life Awakening Movement Publication Publisher:

lshwarlal N. Shah,

Now Sadhu Ishver Samarpan,

Secretary, Jeevan Jagriti Kendra, (Life Awakening Centre)

31, Israil Mohalla,

Bhagwan Bhuvan,

Masjid Bunder Road,

BOMBAY-400 009

Copyright:

Jeevan Jagriti Kendra, Bombay, (India).

First Edition:

August 1972 - 3000 Copies

Second Edition:

November 1973 - 3000 Copies

Price:

Rs. 3-00

Printed by:

Himatlal L. Pawa,

Kiran Printers,

90, Shell Colony Road,

Chembur-400 071

THE ETERNAL MESSAGE

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A collection of thirty immortal letters written by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh to Ma Yoga Bhakti, New York, U.S.A., now Ma Ananda Pratima, World President of Neo-Sannyas International _______________________________________________________

1/ The Inward Growth

Beloved Bhakti,

Love. Materialistic societies produce hollow men.

Men with dead emptiness within.

And because of this dead emptiness one dies before one is really born.

Remember that man cannot live by SHOPS alone.

And today the holy of holies is the SHOP.

The outer is meaningless without the inner richness.

And the outer richness only makes the inner poverty prominent

Man is hollow because there is no inner growth.

And the inner grows only when one lives in the inner Inward is the way of growth, grace and God.

20-4-1971

2/ Life is Non-Fragmentary

Beloved Bhakti,

Love. Life is non-fragmentary.

But mind makes it appear fragmentary.

And this fragmentation creates all the problems.

Beware of fragmentation.

And always look beyond them.

And belove them.

And through them.

Then you will be able to see the ocean in spite of all the waves.

The waves are in the ocean.

But the waves are not the ocean.

The ocean can be without the waves

But the waves cannot be without the ocean 21-5-1971

3/ Maturity Comes Through Understanding Beloved Bhakti,

Love. A small boy with a penny tightly clutched in his hot little hand entered the toy-shop and drove the proprietor to distraction, asking him to show this and that and everything without ever making up his mind.

"Look here my boy," said the storekeeper finally, "What do you want to buy for a penny - the whole world with a fence around it?"

The boy thought for a moment and then replied "Let us see it."

And I say to you that ordinarily no one is different from that small boy in this world.

But unless one is different, one is not mature.

And maturity does not come with age alone.

Maturity comes through understanding the distinction between that which is possible and that which is not possible.

17-4-1971.

4/ Reason is Necessary but Not Enough Beloved Bhakti,

Love. Reason is not enough.

It is necessary but not enough.

The Beyond must be remembered.

And always.

Because reason in itself is destructive.

Alone it is nothing but a cutting weapon.

It creates man, anti-all, and pro-nothing.

It creates absolutely negative minds, which can criticize, but cannot create.

Because reason has no healing force within itself.

It is only a tiny part and not the WHOLE of life and the healing force is always with the WHOLE.

22-4-1971

5/ Authentic Knowledge-Only Through Meditation Beloved Bhakti,

Love. Now man knows more about man than ever. And yet no problem is solved.

It seems that something is basically wrong with our so-called knowledge itself.

This whole knowledge is derived from analysis.

And analysis is incapable of penetrating into the depths of consciousness.

The Analytical method is all right with matter or with things.

Because there is no INSIDE to them.

But consciousness is INSIDENESS.

And to use the analytical method with consciousness is to treat it as an object, while it is not an object at all.

And it cannot be made an object.

Its very nature is subjectivity.

Its being is subjectivity.

So it must not be approached from outside.

Because then whatsoever is known about it is not about it.

Consciousness must be approached from inside.

And then the method is meditation and not analysis.

Meditation is synthetic.

It is concerned with the whole and not with the part.

It is subjective and not objective.

It is irrational or super-rational and not rational.

It is religious or mystic, and not scientific.

Authentic knowledge of consciousness comes only through meditation and all else is just superficial acquaintance and basically erroneous because the very source of it is fallacious.

And poisonous.

24-4-1971

6/ S e l f -Deception

Beloved Bhakti,

Love. Man is strange - very strange.

Because, he begins by deceiving others and ends with deceiving himself.

A Fakir was walking down the village street deep in thought, when some urchins began to throw stones at him.

He was taken by surprise and besides he was not a big man.

"Don't do that and I will tell you something of interest to you."

"All right, what is it? But no philosophy."

"The King is giving a free banquet to all comers." He just simply lied to them.

The children ran off toward the king's palace as the Fakir warmed to his theme, the delicacies and the delights of the entertainment

He looked up and saw them disappearing in the distance.

And then, suddenly he tucked up his robes and started to sprint after them.

"I would better go and see," he panted to himself, because it 30-4-1971

7/ The Silent Observation

Beloved Bhakti,

Love. Look at yourself without thinking, evaluating or judging.

Without any liking or disliking.

That is, without any movement of the mind.

Or, without the noise of the mind.

Then you have eyes which are altogether different from your eyes.

Because they are not burdened by the past.

They are innocent.

And silent.

And in this silence there is neither the observer, nor the observed.

But That-Which-Is.

Undivided and one.

Beginningless and endless.

You can call it God or Nirvana or anything whatsoever.

The name does not matter.

Because the name is not the thing.

And when one has known the thing, one does not bother about the name.

1-5-1971

8/ The Explosion of Thoughtless Awareness Beloved Bhakti,

Love. With thought the mind has boundaries.

But without thought the mind is just infinite space.

That is why in thoughtless awareness one stops to be a drop and becomes oceanic.

And then there is great energy.

This energy wipes out everything which is dead.

It wipes out the whole Karmic past.

And, with no effort at all.

The greater absorbs the lesser and remains untouched.

2-5-1971

9/ The Fire Test

Beloved Bhakti,

Love. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace.

And, the brook would lose its song if we removed the rocks.

28-4-1971

10/ Drop Yourself into the Divine Beloved Bhakti,

Love. Oh! Just drop yourself into the Divine and be purified.

Surrender and be reborn.

Do not resist.

Let Go!

3-5-1971.

11/ The Anti-Life Negative Attitudes Beloved Bhakti,

Love. The attitude is everything.

Negative attitudes negate Life.

They are good to die, but not good to live.

Life needs positive attitudes.

Life feeds on them.

Because they not only make you happy but creative also.

Once there lived an old woman, but the older she became, the younger she felt.

Because youthfulness has nothing to do with age.

It is an attitude.

And with age and its richness one can really be younger than the young.

The old woman was so cheerful and creative that everyone wondered at her.

But you must have some clouds in your life, said a visitor.

"Clouds?" she replied, "Why of course; if there were no clouds where would the blessed showers come from?"

In the presence of trouble, and there are troubles in life, the positive mind grows wings, but others buy crutches.

Grow wings and do not buy crutches.

13-5-1971

12/ Purity-a Consequence of Meditation Beloved Bhakti,

Love. Meditation is like the sea, receiving the dirty river and yet remaining pure.

You need not be purified before it.

But you will come purified out of it.

Meditation is unconditional.

Purity is not a pre-requirement - but a consequence.

4-5-1971

13/ Mutation is Explosion

Beloved Bhakti,

Love. When I say mutation, I do not mean simply change.

Change is from the known to the known.

A sinner becomes a saint; then it is change and not mutation.

You can practice change - but you cannot practice mutation.

Because only the known can be practiced.

And then any change is going to be only a modified past.

Because the past will be continuous in it.

And the past also will be the master of it.

Because it is cultivated by the past.

In other words, change is from This to That.

It is a movement in the known.

But mutation is explosion.

From this to nothingness.

From here to nowhere.

You cannot practice it.

On the contrary, you are the only hindrance.

So what is to be done?

Really nothing can be done.

Be aware of this helplessness.

And, remain in this helplessness.

Do not do anything.

Because any doing will be escaping from this fact of helplessness.

Do not move at all.

And then there is explosion.

And then there is mutation.

11 5 1971

14/ The Mind Dies with Total Acceptance Beloved Bhakti,

Love. Total acceptance of existence is impossible for the mind.

Because the mind exists as denial.

It exists with the NO.

And with a total YES it dies

So it continues to find reasons to say NO - even if there are no reasons.

Walking with a disciple one day, Mulla Nasrudin saw for the first time in his life a beautiful Lakeland scene.

"What a delight!" he exclaimed. "But if only, if only..."

"If only what, Master?" asked the disciple.

"If only they had not put water into it 17-5-1971

15/ Thought Can Never Come to the Cosmic Whole Beloved Bhakti,

Love. Thought is divisive

It divides ad infinitum.

So thought can never come to the total - to the WHOLE.

And, the whole is.

While the parts are not - or they are only for the mind.

And if there is no mind then there are no parts.

With the mind and because of the mind the ONE becomes many - or appears so.

And with the mind, and through the mind, to conceive the One is impossible.

Of course, it can think about the One, but that one is nothing but putting together all the parts.

And that one is quite different from the ONE which is.

The one which is conceptualized by the mind is just a mathematical construct.

It is not a living whole

It is not organic.

And unless one experiences the Cosmos as an organic Whole one has not known anything at all.

This is not possible with thought.

But this is possible with NO-THOUGHT

13-5-1971

1 6 / F r e e d o m f r o m the I d e o l o g y - O r i e n t e d M i n d Beloved Bhakti,

Love. No ideology can help to create a new world.

Cr. a new mind.

Cr. a new human being.

Because, ideological orientation itself is the root cause of all the conflicts and all the miseries.

Thought creates boundaries.

Thought creates divisions.

And thought creates prejudices.

And thought itself cannot bridge them.

That is why all ideologies fail.

Now man must learn to live without ideologies.

Religious, political or otherwise.

When the mind is not tethered to any ideology, it is free to move to new understandings.

And in that freedom flowers all that is good.

And all that is beautiful.

14-5-1971

17/ To Go Beyond Ego

Beloved Bhakti,

Love. Search and the ego is always somewhere behind.

Search and in every act the ego is the motivation.

But if one can find it so - and can realize it so - one goes beyond it.

Because the very realization is the going beyond.

"Brother," said Mulla Nasrudin to a neighbour, "I am collecting to pay the debt of a poor man who cannot meet his obligations."

"Very laudable," said the other and gave him a coin.

Who is this person?"

"Me," said Nasrudin as he hurried away.

A few weeks later he was at the door again.

"I suppose you are calling about a debt," said the non-cynical neighbour.

"I am."

"I suppose someone can't pay a debt, and you want a contribution?"

"That is so.

"I suppose it is you who owe the money?"

"Not this time."

"Well, I am glad to hear it. Take this contribution."

Nasrudin pocketed the money.

"Just one thing, Mulla. What prompts your humanitarian sentiments in this particular case?"

"Ah, you see

I am the creditor!"

26-5-1971

18/ Ecstasy is Always with the New Beloved Bhakti,

Love. Knowledge is accumulation.

That is why knowledge is always dead.

While learning is moment to moment.

Because learning is not accumulation - but movement.

So do not be dead with knowledge.

But move with learning.

Only then you will be alive.

Do not be tethered to experience

Experience is slavery.

Always transcend that which has been.

So that you are ready to receive the new.

Ecstasy is always with the new, with the fresh, with the young, with the discontinuous.

And to be always in the discontinuous is to be in the Divine.

15-5-1971

19/ Truth Can not be Transferred Beloved Bhakti,

Love. Truth is never second-hand.

It can not be transferred.

One has to know it and be it oneself.

That is why all tradition falsifies it.

And all scriptures.

And all words.

And in the end it is nothing but the soup of Mulla Nasrudin.

But first I must tell you the story.

A kinsman came to see Nasrudin from the country and brought a duck. Nasrudin was grateful, had the bird cooked and shared it with the guest.

Presently another visitor arrived. "I am a friend," he said, of the man who gave you the duck." Nasrudin fed him as well.

This happe

s house had become

like a restaurant for out-of-town visitors. Everyone was a friend at some removes, of the original donor of the duck, Finally Nasrudin was exasperated. One day there was a knock at the door and a stranger appeared. "I am the friend of the friend of the friend of the man who brought you the duck from the country," he said.

"Come in," said Nasrudin.

They seated themselves at the table and Nasrudin asked his wife to bring the soup.

When the guest tasted it, it seemed to be nothing more than warm water. "What sort of soup is this?" he asked the Mulla.

"That," said Nasrudin, "is the soup of the soup of the soup of the soup of the duck.

21-5-1971

20/ Transcendence of Conflicts

Beloved Bhakti,

Love. Religion is living without conflict.

That is - without ideas,

And, without ideals.

Because, whenever one lives with ideals, there is conflict.

There is conflict between that which is and that which should be.

And then life is misery.

See this and go beyond.

In fact, the very seeing of the fact is going beyond.

And please, do not ask the seemingly inevitable: How?

Because there is no HOW to it.

Either you SEE it or you do not see it.

And, moreover, the How is again the creator of conflict.

19-5-1971

21/ Knowledge is Through Experiencing Beloved Bhakti,

Love. Knowledge is through experiencing.

More information is not knowledge.

On the contrary, it cannot give the clarity which knowledge gives to the mind, and may confuse one more.

Because, a confused mind is still more burdened with it.

Two men had played chess regularly together for several years. They were quite evenly matched, and there was keen rivalry between them. And then, one man began to beat his rival nearly every time they played. And the other man was completely at a loss to understand this phenomenon. On the contrary, he was expecting his game to improve because he was reading a 4-volume set on 'HOW TO PLAY CHESS'.

After much thought, he came up with an idea. He sent the books to his friend as a gift. And it was not long before they were evenly matched again!

27-5-1971

22/ The Seeker Dissolves in Awareness Beloved Bhakti,

Love. It is very easy to progress from one illusion to another. Because no foundational transformation is needed.

There is no shaking of the foundations.

Because, you remain the same.

So the real problem is not to change the objects of desire.

From the worldly to the other-worldly.

But to transform oneself.

Not to change the seeking.

But to change the seeker.

Otherwise the problem remains as it is - only it takes new shapes.

But how to change the seeker?

First find it out - where it is and what it is.

And then you will come to know a hidden secret, that the seeker exists only until it is not sought.

And when someone goes to search it out - it is never found.

It exists only in ignorance.

And in darkness.

In awareness it is not.

And this realization of NO-SELF is the jump.

Jump into the unknown.

Jump into the Truth.

20-5-1971

23/ Illusion of the Ego

Beloved Bhakti,

Love. Man adds everything to his ego - while everything goes on without him.

He is nothing, but he thinks himself everything.

Mulla Nasrudin was walking past a well, when he had the impulse to look into it. It was night, and as he peered into the deep water, he saw the moon's reflection there.

"I must save the moon!" the Mulla thought. "Otherwise she will never wane and the fasting month of Ramazan will never come to an end."

He found a rope, threw it in and called down: "Hold tight, keep bright; succour is at hand!"

The rope caught in a rock inside the well, and Nasrudin heaved as hard as he could. Straining back, he suddenly felt the rope give way as it became loose, and he was thrown on his back. As he lay there, panting, he saw the moon riding on the sky.

"Glad to be of service," said Nasrudin. "Just as well I came along, wasn't it?"

22-5-1971

24/ The Trap of the Opposites

Beloved Bhakti,

Love. Anger, violence, greed or envy cannot be overcome by the cultivation of their opposites.

Because anger itself will cultivate its opposite.

And violence will be present in its cultivated non-violence.

So always be aware of the hypnotic spell of the opposite.

It never solves any problem.

Because it is beating around the bush.

Do not fall into the trap of the opposite.

But understand anger, violence or greed or anything else directly.

To seek the opposite is a way of escape.

To seek the opposite is cowardice.

Live with your mind as it is.

Do not try to change it.

Be brave to face it and to understand it.

When the light of awareness falls on anger, or greed, or envy, there is a change.

Awareness acts as a catalytic agent.

And then anger does not change into its opposite.

It is not that violence becomes non-violence.

But there is no-anger.

There is no-violence.

And when there is no-violence, there is no-mind.

And an altogether different dimension opens its door.

The dimension of the spontaneous.

The dimension of the Divine.

22-5-1971

25/ To Be Negative is to Be S e l f - Destructive Beloved Bhakti,

Love. Begin to live positively.

That is: with positive emotions.

To be negative is to be self-destructive.

And ultimately suicidal.

But ordinarily the mind works that way.

Because it is only an instrument for safety and security.

It detects death only and not LIFE.

So to be completely positive is to transcend mind.

Some Fakir was asked to talk to a group about the negative nature of the mind. He tacked up on the wall a large sheet of perfectly white paper. He made a black spot in the paper with a pencil. Then he asked each man to say what he saw.

Each man replied,

black spot

The Fakir then said,

"Yes, there is a little black spot. But not one of you saw the big expanse of white paper. And that is the point of my speech."

22-5-1971

26/ Mind is Ego-Centric

Beloved Bhakti,

Love. The mind always thinks in terms of the self.

It is ego-centric.

During the French revolution a man from Paris stopped at a village and was asked by a friend what was happening.

"They are cutting off heads by thousands," said the visitor.

"How terrible!" cried the villager. "That could ruin my hat business!"

But this is the way of the mind.

And because of this it is never in tune with the cosmos.

So how can it know LIFE?

It cannot know it, because it cannot be one with it.

Really with the mind there is no knowing - but only superficial acquaintance.

The intimate and deep knowing comes only with NO-MIND.

And meditation is dissolving mind into NO-MIND.

25-5-1971

27/ Childish Metaphysical Theories Beloved Bhakti,

Love. A madman entered the bazar and declaimed, "The moon is more useful than the sun."

"But, why?" asked someone.

"We need the light more during the night than during the day."

And, I say to you that all our metaphysical theories and explanations are not of more worth than the explanation of that madman.

26-5-1971

28/ In Search of the Secret of Success Beloved Bhakti,

Love. There was once a man who was obsessed with the idea that there was a secret knower in those who achieved success.

To discover this secret he devoted years to study and re-search. Ancient Masonry, Philosophy, Astrology, Psychology, Salesmanship, Religious beliefs, the various cults that have had their rise and fall - all these he studied long and diligently. But no conclusion was visible. He struggled and struggled, but still there was no conclusion.

And then instead of success in his search for the secret of success came death. And as death approached him he realized the goal of his whole life's efforts, and finally he gave his conclusion to those who were near him. It came in two short words: "I WILL."

30-5-1971

29/ Childish Answers about the Ultimate Reality Beloved Bhakti,

Love. Metaphysics is born out of childish curiosity.

So howsoever sublime, it remains juvenile.

And all the ultimate answers are foolish in a way.

Because the ultimate is not only unknown, it is unknowable.

A mature mind is one who understands the impossibility of knowing the ultimate.

And, with this understanding, there is a new dimension.

The dimension of BEING.

Knowing is not possible, but BEING is.

Or in other words, in relation to the Ultimate only, Being is KNOWING.

This dimension is the religious dimension, And unless one is religious in this sense, one goes on asking absurd questions and accumulating even more absurd answers.

In a little backwoods school the teacher was at the black-board explaining arithmetic problems. She was delighted to see her dullest pupil giving slack-jawed attention, which was unusual for him. Her happy thought was that, at last, the gangling lad was beginning to understand.

When she finished she said to him, "You were so interested, Cicero, that I am sure you want to ask some questions?"

"Yes'm." drawled Cicero, "I got one to ask. Where do these figures go when you rub them off?"

30-5-1971

30/ The Eternal Message

Beloved Bhakti,

Love. If the present is just continuous with the past then it is not present at all.

To be present, the present must be discontinuous with the past.

Only then it is young, fresh and new.

And then it is not a part of time, but is eternity itself.

The NOW is eternal.

But we live in the past or in the future which is nothing but a faint echo of the past itself.

Our whole activity springs from the past or for the future which is the same thing.

Then the present is false and dead.

And if the present is false then we cannot be real.

And if the present is dead then we cannot be alive.

That is why I insist to live in the present.

And to die each moment for the past.

Live atomically - moment to moment.

And then your life will have a totally different quality - the quality of Divine.

10-5-1971