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Excerpts from "Tantra Vision" by Osho
The following are excerpts from the book Tantra Vision:
The Secret Of The Inner Experience by Osho, a world-reknowned
mystic teaching the principles of the Hindu religion and Buddhist meditation.
Page
10
The most basic thing about Tantra is this-- and very
radical, revolutionary, rebellious-- the basic vision is that the world
is not divided into the lower and the higher, but that the world is one
piece. The higher and the lower are holding hands. The higher includes
the lower, and the lower includes the higher. The higher is hidden in
the lower-- so the lower has not to be denied, has not to be condemned,
has not to be destroyed or killed. The lower has to be transformed. The
lower has to be allowed to move upwards... and the lower becomes the higher.
There is no unbridgeable gap between the Devil and God-- the Devil is
carrying God deep down in his heart. Once that heart starts functioning,
the Devil becomes God.
Page
10
Buddha's teaching was devised in such a way that it
could not be destroyed. It is still alive. Even after twenty-five centuries,
a few flowers come on his tree, it still blooms. Spring comes, and still
it releases fragrance, it still bears fruit.
Saraha is also a fruit of the same tree. Saraha was
born about two centuries after Buddha. [...]
Tantra converted Tibet, and Saraha is the founder of
Tantra just as Bodhidharma is the founder of Zen. Bodhidharma conquered
China, Korea, Japan. Saraha conquered Tibet.
Page 12
You may not have even heard the name of Saraha, but
Saraha is one of the great benefactors of humanity. If I were to count
on my fingers ten benefactors of humanity, Saraha would be one of those
ten. If I were to count five, then too I would not be able to drop Saraha.
Page
82
He is saying: Look! the inner being is so perfect that your actions
may be those of a sinner, but nothing is taken away. And your actions
may be those of a saint, but nothing is added unto you. You remain the
same.
It is a tremendously revolutionary saying. It is a great
statement. He says: Nothing can be added to man and nothing can be deleted
from man-- his inner perfection is such. You cannot make man more beautiful
and you cannot make man ugly. You cannot make him more rich, you cannot
make him poor. He is like the sea.
Page 19
Do any action totally and you are free of it, and you
don't look back. And the real man never looks back-- because there is
nothing to see. He has no hangovers. He simply goes ahead. His eyes are
clear of the past, his vision is not clouded. In that clarity one comes
to know what reality is.
You are so much worried with all your incomplete actions--
you are like a junkyard. One thing is incomplete here, another thing is
incomplete there-- nothing is complete. Have you watched it? Have you
ever completed anything? or is everything just incomplete? And you go
on pushing aside one thing and you start another thing, and before it
is complete you start another. You become more and more burdened-- this
is what karma is, Karma means incomplete action.
Page 31
Visualize a lake, a placid, silent lake, with no waves.
Then there comes a great wind and it starts playing on the surface of
the lake, and the lake is disturbed, and a thousand and one ripples and
waves arise. Just a moment before, the reflection of the full moon was
there in the lake; now it is no more there. Now the moon is still reflected,
but in a thousand and one fragments. It is all over the lake. The whole
lake is silvery because of the reflection, but you cannot catch hold of
the real reflection--where the moon is, how it looks. It is all distorted.
Saraha says this is the situation of the worldly mind,
of the deluded. This is the only difference between a Buddha and a non-Buddha.
A Buddha is one whose wind is no more blowing. That wind is called trishna--
desire. Have you watched, observed? Whenever there is desire, there are
a thousand and one ripples in your heart, your consciousness is disturbed
and distracted. Whenever desire stops, you are at ease, at peace with
yourself.
So desire is the wind that distorts the mind. And when
the mind is distorted, you cannot reflect the reality.
The
following are excerpts from the book
Tantra Vision:
The Door To Nirvana by Osho
Page 120
Let me tell you one anecdote.
There was a hunter walking through the jungle, and he met a snarling tiger coming toward him on the path. He reached for his gun. To his horror, he saw that he had no bullets! The tiger was coming nearer. It was going to attack.
"What can I do? I'm going to be eaten up," thought the hunter, terror freezing him on the spot. Just as the tiger was about to spring, the hunter had a strange feeling. "I do believe all this is only a dream," he said to himself. "If I try hard enough, I am sure I'll wake up." So he pinched himself hard, and shook himself and blinked. In a moment the tiger was gone, the tiger disappeared; the hunter was safe in his own bed. What a relief! He still trembled with fright, but now he laughed too. How real that tiger had seemed! Thank goodness it was only a dream.
When he felt calm again, the hunter got up and made himself a cup of tea. He still felt tired, so he sat outside his hut in a deck chair and smoked his pipe for a while. He really felt quite sleepy. So he tipped his hat over his face, and closed his eyes. "I could sleep all day," he said.
After a time, he heard growling. "Bless me," said the hunter, "I must have dropped off to sleep again. There's that tiger coming back. Go away, you silly tiger, I am tired of dreaming about you!" The tiger growled again, and came nearer. "I'm not afraid of you. You are only a dream," said the hunter. Then he got up from his chair, walked up to the tiger, and punched it hard on the nose.
"What a funny man," thought the tiger. "Men usually run away from me." And, of course, seeing this strange man, the tiger escaped. When the tiger was just escaping through the door, the man became alert to it that he was fully awake and the tiger was not a dream; it was a reality.
But what happened? The dream helped him even to tackle the real tiger. Naturally the tiger must have become very puzzled. 'This has never happened! What type of man is this that he gets up and hits me in the face just like that?' All is dream, but dreams can help to understand reality, even to overcome reality.
And now you know that whatsoever has been done or not done, was just a dream. Now you know that karma, action, means nothing. Nothing is left. Nothing really happens. All is. Nothing happens.
It is true- it has helped for this and that. Even while it was a dream,
it was helpful- it brought me to this reality. I have stepped over that
dream, but now I know
it was a dream. Now I know it was false. I have not done anything, because
nothing is ever done; it is all a dream, but it has helped- it has brought
me to this ultimate fruition.
This Samsara and that nirvana have both been enriched by that dream. The dream was not futile; it was helpful, utilitarian, but not true.
Page 124
Saraha says:
By what does not affect one
How can one now be fettered?
And the last sentence of the sutra is of great beauty.
When you really come home and you see what is, you will not feel that you have become liberated. On the contrary, you will feel 'How ridiculous that I ever thought that I was not liberated.' The difference is great.
If, when you come home, when you come to know what is, you start feeling very, very enhanced and you are in a very great euphoria, and you say 'Now I have become liberated, that means you are not liberated. That means you still think the bondage was real, that means you are still in a dream. Now in another dream: One dream was of bondage, this other dream is of liberation- but another dream again.
Saraha says: When you really become liberated- liberated from all right and wrong, liberated from all good and bad- then you are not only liberated from bondage but from liberation itself. Then suddenly you start laughing. "How ridiculous! The bondage cannot happen in the first place, the bondage had never happened! It was just a belief. I had believed in it, and I had created it through my belief. It was a dream; now the dream is over."
That's why the last sentence ends on a question mark. Have you ever seen scripture ending on a question mark? This is the only one. I have not come across any other. Scriptures begin with a question mark and end with an answer. The introduction can be a question not the epilogue. But this beautiful song of Saraha ends on a question mark.
If I am like a pig that covets worldly mire
You must tell me what fault lies in a stainless mind.
By what does not affect one
How can one now be fettered?
He does not declare that he is enlightened. He does not declare that he is liberated. He does not declare that he has come home. He simply says: I laugh at the very idea I have gone anywhere. I have never gone anywhere. I have, always and always, been at my home. I have always been here and now. Only I was dreaming, so the dream created the illusion that I had gone somewhere. Now the dream has disappeared, and I am where I have always been.
That's why he says: How can one now be fettered?
Nobody is there to be fettered; nothing is there to fetter. The bondage has disappeared, so has disappeared the man was in bondage. When the world disappears, the ego disappears- together; they are part of the same game. Inside is the ego, outside is the world. They cannot live apart; they are always together. When one disappears, the other disappears simultaneously. Now the ego is not there, and the world is not there.
Saraha is propounding Buddha's great insight. Buddha says: There is no substance and there is no self. Substance is not there; all is empty. And the self is not inside you, there also it is all empty. To come to see this emptiness... awareness floating in emptiness- pure awareness, unbounded awareness..
This awareness is emptiness itself, or this emptness is awareness itself. This emptiness is luminous with awareness, full of awareness.
Tantra is a great insight into things as they really are. But remember,
finally, it is not a philosophy, it is an insight. And if you want to
go into it, you will have to
go, not through the mind, but without the mind.
No mind is the door to Tantra.
Non-thinking is the way to Tantra.
Experiencing is the key to Tantra.
Osho's history and philosophy
Osho is a mystic who brings the timeless wisdom of the East to bear on the urgent questions facing men and women today. He speaks of the search for harmony and wholeness that lies at the core of all religious and spiritual traditions, illuminating the essence of Christianity, Hassidism, Buddhism, Sufism, Tantra, Tao, Yoga, and Zen.
Osho's vision is a new man. After his enlightenment in 1953, the evolution of that new man became his whole work. In 1963 he left the academic world where he had taught philosophy at the University of Jabalpur and began speaking to tens of thousands across India. He then focused intensely on developing practical tools for man's transformation. Modern man, he said, is so burdened with traditions of the past and anxieties of modern-day living, that he must go through a deep cleansing process before he can begin to discover the thought-free relaxed state of meditation.
In 1974, a commune was established around him in Poona, India, and a trickle of visitors from the West soon became a flood. Today this commune has become the largest spiritual-growth center in the world. Each year it attracts thousands of international visitors to its meditation, therapy, bodywork and creative programs.
In the course of his work, Osho speaks on virtually every aspect of the development of human consciousness. His talks cover a staggering range from the meaning of life and death to the struggles of power and politics; from the challenges of love and creativity to the significance of science and education.
Osho, who was born in India in 1931 and left his body in 1990, belongs to no tradition. He says, "My message is not a doctrine, not a philosophy. My message is a certain alchemy, a science of transformation."
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