Tarot in the Spirit of Zen

by Osho

  When you don’t need a person at all, when you are totally sufficient unto yourself, when you can be alone and tremendously happy and ecstatic, then love is possible. But then too you cannot be certain whether the other’s love is real or not—you can be certain about only one thing: whether your love is real. How can you be certain about the other? But then there is no need.

  But while you are asleep you will need somebody’s love—even if it is false, you will need it. Enjoy it! Don’t create anxiety. And try to become more and more awake.

  One day when you are really awake you will be able to love—but then you will be certain only about your love. But that’s enough! Who bothers? Right now, you want to use others. When you are really blissful on your own, you don’t want to use anybody. You simply want to share. You have so much, so much is overflowing, you would like somebody to share it. And you will feel thankful that somebody was ready to receive.

  Right now, you are worried too much whether the other really loves you—because you are not certain about your own love. You are not certain about your worth. You cannot believe that somebody can really love you. You don’t see anything in yourself. You cannot love yourself—how can somebody else love you? It seems unreal, it seems impossible.

  Do you love yourself? You have not even asked the question. People hate themselves. People condemn themselves—they go on condemning; they go on thinking that they are rotten. How can the other love you? Such a rotten person. No, nobody can love you really. The other must be fooling, cheating; there must be some other reason. She must be after something else; he must be after something else.

  There is no way to be certain about the other—first be certain about yourself. And a person who is certain about himself is certain about the whole world.

  VII. Awareness

  You are awareness. It is nothing you do, it is nothing that has to be done—your very nature is awareness.

  Awareness is not part of the mind. It flows through the mind, but it is not part of the mind. It is just like a lightbulb—the electricity flows through it, but the electricity is not part of the bulb. If you break the bulb, you have not broken electricity. The expression will be hindered, but the potentiality remains hidden. You put another bulb in and the electricity starts flowing.

  Mind is just an instrument. Awareness is not part of it, but awareness flows through it. When mind is transcended, awareness remains in itself. That’s why I say even a buddha will have to use the mind if he talks to you, if he relates to you, because then he will need the flow, the flow of his inner pool. He will have to use instruments, mediums, and then the mind will function. But the mind is just a vehicle.

  Mind is just the vehicle. And you are not using the mind to its total capacity. If you use it to its total capacity, it will become what Buddha calls “right knowledge.” We are using our minds like someone who uses an airplane like a bus. You can cut the wings of the airplane and use it like a bus on the road. That will do; it will work like a bus. But you are foolish. That bus can fly! You are not using it to its right capacity.

  You are using your mind for dreams, imaginations, madness. You have not used it, you have cut the wings. If you use it with wings, it can become right knowledge; it can become wisdom. But that too is part of the mind; that too is the vehicle. The user remains behind; the user cannot be the used. You are using it, you are awareness. And all efforts for meditation are to know this awareness in its purity, without any medium.

  And this can be known only when mind has stopped functioning. When mind has stopped functioning, you will become aware that awareness is there; you are filled with it. Mind was just a vehicle, a passage. Now, if you want, you can use the mind, and if you don’t want, you need not use it.

  Body and mind, both are vehicles. You are not the vehicle, you are the master hidden behind these vehicles. But you have forgotten completely and you have become the cart; you have become the vehicle. This is what Gurdjieff calls identification. This is what, in India, yogis have called tadatmya, becoming one with something that you are not.

  When we say the mind ceases, we mean your identification is broken. Now you know that this is the mind and this is “I am.” The bridge is broken. Now the mind is not the master. It has become just an instrument; it has fallen to its right place. So whenever you need it, you can use it.

  Just by witnessing, mind doesn’t cease and the brain cells will not cease. Rather, they will become more alive because there will be less conflict, more energy. They will become fresher. And you can use them more rightly, more accurately, but you will not be burdened by them and they will not force you to do something. They will not push and pull you here and there. You will be the master.

  How does it happen just by witnessing? Because the bondage has happened by not witnessing. The bondage has happened because you are not alert, so the bondage will disappear if you become alert. The bondage is only unawareness. Nothing else is needed: become more alert, whatsoever you do.

  Whatsoever you do, make it a point not to do it in a sleepy way. Watch every act, every thought, every feeling. Watch and move. Every moment is very precious—don’t waste it in sleepiness. And if you use every moment as an opportunity to become more conscious, the consciousness grows by and by. One day, suddenly, you find that the light is burning inside. If you work hard towards it, one day suddenly in the morning you rise completely new—dry, unattached; loving, but not in any way involved; remaining in the world and yet a watcher on the hills. This is the paradox that has to be fulfilled: remaining in the world and yet watching from the hills; at the same time, simultaneously, being in the world and not being in it.

  That is how base metals are transformed into gold. With unconsciousness you are a base metal, with consciousness you will become gold, you are transformed. Just the fire of awareness is needed. You lack nothing else, everything is there. With the fire of awareness a new arrangement happens.

  VIII. Courage

  Growth certainly needs one thing, and that is courage. That is the most fundamental religious quality. Everything else is ordinary and can follow, but courage is the most fundamental thing, the first thing.

  You are a seed. The seed can have four possibilities. The seed may remain a seed forever, closed, windowless, not in communion with existence, dead, because life means communion with existence. And the seed is dead, it has not yet communicated with the earth, with the sky, with the air, with the wind, with the sun, with the stars. It has not yet made any attempt to have a dialogue with all that exists. It is utterly lonely, enclosed, encapsulated into itself, surrounded by a Great Wall of China. The seed lives in its own grave.

  The first possibility is that the seed may remain a seed. That is very unfortunate—a man may remain simply a seed. With all the potential at your disposal, with all the blessings ready to shower on you, you may never open your doors.

  The second possibility is that the seed may be courageous enough, may dive deep into the soil, may die as an ego, may drop its armor, may start a communion with existence, may become one with the earth. Great courage is needed, because who knows? This death may be ultimate, there may be no birth following it. What is the guarantee? There is no guarantee; it is a gamble. Only a few gather courage enough to gamble, to risk.

  To be a seeker is the beginning of the gamble. You are risking your life, you are risking your ego. You are risking because you are dropping all your securities, all your safety arrangements. You are opening windows—who knows who is going to come in? The friend or the enemy—who knows? You are becoming vulnerable. That’s what seeking is all about. That’s what Buddha was teaching his whole life. Forty-two years continuously, transforming seeds into plants—that was his work—transforming ordinary human beings into seekers.

  A seeker is a plant, a sprout—soft, delicate. The seed is never in danger, remember. What danger can there be for the seed? It is absolutely protected. But the plant is always in danger, the plant is very soft. The seed is like a stone, hard, hi
dden behind a hard crust. But the plant has to pass through a thousand and one hazards. That is the second stage: the seed dissolving into the soil, the man disappearing as an ego, disappearing as a personality, becoming a plant.

  The third possibility, which is even more rare, because not all plants are going to attain that height where they can bloom into flowers, a thousand and one flowers … . Very few human beings attain the second stage, and very few of those who attain the second stage attain the third, the stage of the flower. Why can’t they attain the third stage, the stage of the flower? Because of greed, because of miserliness, they are not ready to share … because of a state of unlovingness.

  Courage is needed to become a plant, and love is needed to become a flower. A flower means the tree is opening up its heart, releasing its perfume, giving its soul, pouring its being into existence. The seed can become a plant, although it is difficult to drop the armor, but in one way it is simple. The seed will only be gathering more and more, accumulating more and more; the seed only takes from the soil. The tree only takes from the water, from the air, from the sun; its greed is not disturbed; on the contrary, its ambition is fulfilled. It goes on becoming bigger and bigger. But a moment comes when you have taken so much that now you have to share. You have been benefited so much, now you have to serve. God has given you so much, now you have to thank, be grateful—and the only way to be grateful is to shower your treasures, give them back to existence, be as unmiserly as existence has been with you. Then the tree grows into flowers, it blossoms.

  And the fourth stage is that of fragrance. The flower is still gross, it is still material, but the fragrance is subtle, it is almost something nonmaterial. You cannot see it, it is invisible. You can only smell it, you cannot grab it, you cannot grasp it. A very sensitive understanding is needed to have a dialogue with the fragrance. And beyond fragrance there is nothing. The fragrance disappears into the universe, becomes one with it.

  These are the four stages of the seed, and these are the four stages of human beings too. Don’t remain a seed. Gather courage—courage to drop the ego, courage to drop the securities, courage to drop the safeties, courage to be vulnerable. But then don’t remain a tree, because a tree without flowers is poor. A tree without flowers is empty, a tree without flowers is missing something essential. It has no beauty—without love there is no beauty. And it is only through flowers that the tree shows its love. It has taken so much from the sun and the moon and from the earth; now it is time to give.

  IX. Aloneness

  There are a few things that can only be done alone. Love, prayer, life, death, aesthetic experiences, blissful moments—they all come when you are alone

  Nobody wants to be alone. The greatest fear in the world is to be left alone. People do a thousand and one things just not to be left alone. You imitate your neighbors so you are just like them and you are not left alone. You lose your individuality, you lose your uniqueness. You just become imitators, because if you are not imitators you will be left alone.

  You become part of the crowd, you become part of a church, you become part of an organization. Somehow you want to merge with a crowd where you can feel at ease, that you are not alone, there are so many people like you—so many Mohammedans like you, so many Hindus like you, so many Christians, millions of them … you are not alone.

  To be alone is really the greatest miracle. That means now you don’t belong to any church, you don’t belong to any organization, you don’t belong to any theology, you don’t belong to any ideology—socialist, communist, fascist, Hindu, Christian, Jain, Buddhist—you don’t belong, you simply are. And you have learned how to love your indefinable, ineffable reality. You have come to know how to be with yourself.

  Try to understand this. You are born alone; you die alone. These two are the greatest moments in life: birth and death. You are born alone; you die alone. The greatest moments of life—the beginning and the end—are in aloneness. When you meditate, you again become alone. That’s why meditation is both—a death and a birth. You die to the past and you are born to the new, to the unknown.

  Even in love, when you think you are together, you are not together. There are two alonenesses. In real love nothing is lost. When two lovers are sitting—if they are really lovers and they don’t try to possess each other and they don’t try to dominate each other, because that is not love; that is the way of hatred, the way of violence—if they love, and if the love is coming out of their aloneness, you will see two beautiful alonenesses together. They are like two Himalayan peaks, high in the sky, but separate. They don’t interfere. In fact, deep love only reveals your pure aloneness to you.

  All that is true and all that is real will always bring you to aloneness. Love, prayer, life, death, aesthetic experiences, blissful moments—they all come when you are alone. When you are in love you think you are with somebody. Maybe the somebody is just reflecting your aloneness, the somebody is just a mirror in which your aloneness is reflected. But the deeper you move in love, the deeper you know that even your lover cannot penetrate there. Your aloneness is absolute—and it is good that it is so; otherwise you will be a public thing. Then you will not have any innermost core where you can be alone. Then you can be violated. But your aloneness is absolute; nobody can violate it.

  X. Change

  Only the entry of the new can transform you, there is no other way of transformation.

  If you allow the new to enter, you will never be the same again.

  The new does not arise out of you, it comes from the beyond. It is not part of you. The new is discontinuous with you, hence the fear. Your whole past is at stake. You have lived in one way, you have thought in one way, you have made a comfortable life out of your beliefs. Then something new knocks on the door. Now your whole past pattern is going to be disturbed. If you allow the new to enter, you will never be the same again, the new will transform you.

  It is risky. With the new, one never knows where one will end. The old is known, familiar; you have lived with it for long, you are acquainted with it. The new is unfamiliar. It may be a friend, it may be an enemy, who knows. And there is no way to know. The only way to know is to allow it; hence the apprehension, the fear.

  And you cannot keep rejecting it either, because the old has not yet given you what you seek. The old has been promising, but the promises have not been fulfilled. The old is familiar but miserable. The new is maybe going to be uncomfortable … but there is a possibility—it may bring bliss to you. So you cannot reject it and you cannot accept it either; hence you waver, you tremble, great anguish arises in your being. It is natural, this is how it has always been. This is how it will always be.

  Try to understand the appearance of the new. Everybody in the world wants to become new, because nobody is satisfied with the old. Nobody can ever be satisfied with the old because whatever it is, you have known it. Once known it has become repetitive; once known it has become boring, monotonous. You want to get rid of it. You want to explore, you want to adventure. You want to become new … and yet when the new knocks on the door you shrink back, you withdraw, you hide in the old. This is the dilemma.

  How do we become new?—and everybody wants to become new. Courage is needed, and not ordinary courage; extraordinary courage is needed. And the world is full of cowards, hence people have stopped growing. How can you grow if you are a coward? With each new opportunity you shrink back, you close your eyes. How can you grow? How can you be? You only pretend to be.

  How do we become new? We do not become new of ourselves. Newness comes from the beyond. Newness comes from existence. Mind is always old. Mind is never new, it is the accumulation of the past. Newness comes from the beyond; it is a gift. It is from the beyond and it is of the beyond.

  The unknown and the unknowable, the beyond, has ingress into you. It has ingress into you because you are never sealed and set apart; you are not an island. You may have forgotten the beyond but the beyond has not forgotten you. The child may have forg
otten the mother, the mother has not forgotten the child. The part may have started thinking, “I am separate,” but the whole knows that you are not separate. The whole has ingress in you. It is still in contact with you. That’s why the new goes on coming although you don’t welcome it. It comes every morning, it comes every evening. It comes in a thousand and one ways. If you have eyes to see, you will see it continuously coming to you.

  And only the new, accepted deeply and totally, can transform you. You cannot bring the new in your life; the new comes. You can either accept it or reject it. If you reject it you remain a stone, closed and dead. If you receive it you become a flower, you start opening … and in that opening is celebration.

  The new is a messenger, the new is a message. It is a gospel. Listen to the new, go with the new. I know you are afraid. In spite of the fear, go with the new, and your life will become richer and richer and you will be able one day to release the imprisoned splendor.

  The moment anything becomes a repetition you start behaving like a robot. And everything is bound to become a repetition, unless your intelligence, your meditativeness, your love is so great that it goes on transforming you, and the person you love. So that each time you look in the eyes of the person you love, it is something different, it is something new—new flowers have blossomed, the season has changed.

  Unless one remains changing, even love becomes hell; otherwise, everybody would be in love in the whole world, but everybody is living in his own hell—private hells, just like attached bathrooms. To live a life that never becomes a misery, that never becomes a hell, one has to be fresh every moment, unburdened of the past, always trying to find new dimensions to relate with people, new ways to relate with people, new songs to sing. One should make it a point, a basic point, that “I will not live like a machine.” The machine has no life—it has efficiency. The world needs you to be a machine because the world needs efficiency. But your own being needs you to be absolutely non-mechanical, unpredictable—each morning should find you new.