/lit/ - Literature

>>23055536
>It is the perennial problem: those who have known have come across an unbridgeable gap between their experience and their capacity to express it. What they have known is so vast that whatever they say is going to limit it, and to limit the unlimited is unforgivable. If they don't say anything, then too they are saying something. They are saying that nothing can be said.

>But the experience is so glorious, so nourishing, so fulfilling that to say that nothing can be said about it is to show your uncompassion towards those who are not so blessed with the experience. Unless you say something, howsoever limited, millions will remain unaware that their potential was for the whole sky, and they remained limited in a small world. They never opened their wings into the sky, because they never thought that beyond the cage there exists anything else.

>To let people remain unaware of their capacity to fly, and the infinity of the sky, is certainly unkind. This is such a dilemma: if you say something it is not right, and if you don't say something it is again not right. You have to say something, howsoever small. It may give someone a hint; perhaps it may not quench the thirst but it may provoke a search.

>It may not quench the thirst but it may make you aware of it, that you are thirsty. Even to become aware of your thirst is a great beginning, because one cannot remain thirsty if one knows -- one is going to seek and search in every possible way. And the ocean of life is not far away. We are in it, we are part of it.

>There have been two types of mystics in the world. One Gautam Buddha has called the arhatas. They have chosen to remain silent. They are absolutely committed to the truth and they are not going to compromise on any account. They will not say something which is not absolutely right, they will not say something which is only approximately true, because the approximately true is nothing but a lie. They will not give an example because there is no parallel to their experience, there is no possibility of any comparison. Seeing the situation, one can understand why they have chosen to remain silent.

>But there has been another category of awakened people, enlightened ones, who have tried, although their efforts have not been very successful. By their very nature, they cannot be. But even if one person in a million has become awakened by the efforts of a bodhisattva, the second category of enlightened people, the effort was worth making.

>>22767623
>With man, the natural, automatic process of evolution ends. Man is the last product of unconscious evolution. With man, conscious evolution begins. Many things are to be taken into account.

>First, unconscious evolution is mechanical and natural. It happens by itself. Through this type of evolution, consciousness evolves. But the moment consciousness comes into being, unconscious evolution stops because its purpose has been fulfilled. Unconscious evolution is needed only up to the point where the conscious comes into being. Man has become conscious. In a way, he has transcended nature. Now nature cannot do anything; the last product that was possible through natural evolution has come into being. Now man becomes free to decide whether to evolve or not to evolve.

>Secondly, unconscious evolution is collective, but the moment evolution becomes conscious it becomes individual. No collective, automatic evolution proceeds further than mankind. From now on, evolution becomes an individual process. Consciousness creates individuality. Before consciousness evolves, there is no individuality; only species exist, not individuality.

>When evolution is still unconscious, it is an automatic process; there is no uncertainty about it. Things happen through the law of cause and effect. Existence is mechanical and certain. But with man, with consciousness, uncertainty comes into existence. Now nothing is certain. Evolution may take place or it may not. The potential is there, but the choice will rest entirely with each individual. That is why anxiety is a human phenomenon. Below man there is no anxiety because there is no choice. Everything happens as it must. There is no choice so there is no chooser, and in the absence of the chooser, anxiety is impossible. Who is to be anxious? Who is to be tense?

>With the possibility of choice, anxiety follows like a shadow. Now everything has to be chosen; everything is a conscious effort. You alone are responsible. If you fail, you fail. It is your responsibility. If you succeed, you succeed. It is again your responsibility. And every choice is ultimate in a sense. You cannot undo it, you cannot forget it, you cannot go back on it. Your choice becomes your destiny. It will remain with you and be a part of you; you cannot deny it. But your choice is always a gamble. Every choice is made in darkness because nothing is certain.

>That is why man suffers from anxiety. He is anxious to his very roots. What torments him, to begin with, is: To be or not to be? To do or not to do? To do this or to do that? “No choice” is not possible. If you do not choose, then you are choosing not to choose; it is a choice. So you are forced to choose; you are not free not to choose. Not choosing will have as much effect as any other choice.

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>>22452340
>You come across a wildflower in the mountains and you don’t know what it is; your mind has nothing to say about it, the mind is silent. You look at the flower, you see the flower, but no knowledge arises in you—there is wonder, there is mystery. The flower is there, you are there. Through wonder you are not separate, you are bridged. But if you know that this is a rose or a marigold or something else, that very knowledge disconnects you. The flower is there, you are here, but there is no bridge—you “know.” Knowledge creates distance.
>The more you know, the bigger the distance; the less you know, the lesser the distance. And if you are in a moment of not knowing, there is no distance; you are bridged.
>You fall in love with a woman or a man—the day you fall in love there is no distance. There is only wonder, a thrill, an excitement, an ecstasy—but no knowledge. You don’t know who this woman is. Without knowledge there is nothing to divide you; hence the beauty of those first moments of love. Once you have lived with the woman—only for twenty-four hours—knowledge has arisen. Now you have some ideas about the woman; you know who she is, there is an image. Twenty-four hours have created a past; those twenty-four hours have left marks on the mind. You look at the same woman, there is no longer the same mystery. You are coming down the hill, that peak is lost.
>To understand this is to understand much. To understand that knowledge divides, knowledge creates distance, is to understand the very secret of meditation.
Meditation is a state of not knowing. Meditation is pure space, undisturbed by knowledge. Yes, the biblical story is true—that man has fallen through knowledge, by eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. No other scripture of the world surpasses that. That parable is the last word; no other parable has reached to that height and that insight. It looks so illogical that man has fallen through knowledge. It looks illogical because logic is part of knowledge! Logic is all in support of knowledge—it looks illogical because logic is the root cause of man’s fall.
>A man who is absolutely logical—absolutely sane, always sane, never allows any illogic in his life—is a madman. Sanity needs to be balanced by insanity; logic needs to be balanced by illogic. The opposites meet and balance. A man who is just rational is unreasonable—he will miss much. In fact he will go on missing all that is beautiful and all that is true. He will collect trivia, his life will be a mundane life.

>>19515182
Osho