Question – How do i find my way?
Osho – Rashid, There is no way to be found, and there is no one to find it – and there is no need either. The very idea of the way misleads, misguides. The way is possible only if God is far away; if there is a distance between you and the truth, then the way is needed to connect, to bridge.
But God is not distant, truth is not ’there’. God is not even near, God is in you, God is you. God is nearness, intimacy. That is the meaning when Jesus says God is love – by love he means nearness, intimacy. God is already there in the innermost core of your being. The moment you start thinking of the way, you have started thinking of time, effort, will, struggle, seeking, searching, desiring, dreaming. You have created the whole world and the misery that automatically follows it. The very idea of truth being distant is false, utterly false. You have never left home. See it! Seeing it, the whole search disappears.
This is the Zen approach, hence Zen is a pathless path, a gateless gate, an effortless effort. These are immensely significant words: pathless path, gateless gate, effortless effort. All that is meant is that you are not to go anywhere. Relax. Rest into your being. Rather than thinking of going, think of coming. You have already dreamt enough, you have left your home in a dream. Now, don’t prolong this dream. Asking for a way you are trying to convert your worldly dream into an other-worldly dream, that’s all. The materialist is trying to become a spiritualist, but the greed continues.
Remember one thing as a criterion: anything which creates future is bound to be against reality, because reality is always present – always and always, and for ever. Reality knows no future, the mind creates the future, and creates it very cunningly, very cleverly.
Now, this is a very clever question: HOW DO I FIND MY WAY? And you may not be aware what you are getting into. You are getting into a dream, and now you will be exploited because now you will find people who will supply the way. Wherever there is a demand, somebody is bound to supply. That is an economic law: the law of demand and supply. You make a demand for the way, and immediately thousands of gurus are born – you have given birth to them – and they are ready to supply you all that you need. That’s how the spiritual supermarket exists: you create it by your demand. You create the false, the pseudo prophets, because when you ask for the way, the real Master cannot give it to you because he is not your enemy, he is not there to exploit you. The real Master’s work is to take all the ways from you, all the methods. His whole work consists of destroying your future. Once the future is destroyed, you will find yourself here, now – and now is the only real time.
God exists in real time, and you exist in an unreal time, hence you never meet. It is like a person who has fallen asleep and is dreaming: fallen asleep in Poona and dreaming of Philadelphia. And you are sitting by the side of the man who has fallen asleep; he cannot see you, he cannot be aware of you, he cannot see the room, he cannot hear the birds singing outside, he cannot feel the wetness in the air. He is in Philadelphia, he is in an unreal time, in an unreal space. Because he is in an unreal time and unreal space – of his own creation and imagination and fantasy – he is missing the real; he is missing this room, this place, he is missing you who are there, alive, loving, but unavailable. So close and yet so far away you are – because the man is in Philadelphia.
What is needed? Does he need a way? Has he to go to some airline and book to come back? Has he to travel back? Is there any need for a Way? No, all that he needs is an awakening, a shock so he can be awakened, a shaking-up. You shake him up, he will open his eyes, and suddenly Philadelphia has disappeared. Exactly like that it happens. In the close proximity of a Master you are given constant shocks and shakings. He does not supply you with paths, ways, methods, he simply shocks you – he goes like a shiver in your spine.
And the sleep is no ordinary sleep, it is metaphysical sleep. You have slept for lives together. You have slept the whole past, and you have dreamed so much and you have invested in the dream so much that it looks almost impossible to wake up – too risky, too costly, such a gamble. You can do it only if you fall in love with a Master. If you fall in love with a Master risk is possible, because people risk only when they are in love.
Sannyas is a love affair. When you are in love you are mad. And only the mad man can come back; the clever and the cunning and the calculating will think so many things against coming back. In Philadelphia he has made a beautiful house, in Philadelphia he has found a woman, in Philadelphia he has children, in Philadelphia he has a good business, in Philadelphia he has become respected – he has become the mayor; all his life consists of Philadelphia. And suddenly you wake him up, and you destroy all. And the woman that he used to love and was so beautiful is no more, and the children… all disappeared, and the mayorhood and the business and the bank balance… all is gone. He will be angry at you.
Unless you are in love with a Master, you will not allow him to wake you up. Unless the love is so great that you can risk all… Once you are awake you will thank him, but before you are awake you will be angry many times. It is happening every day here. I go on shaking you, shocking you, I say so many things. The purpose is basically to shock you, the purpose is somehow to make it impossible for you to go on sleeping, to go on dreaming. All the methods that we use here are not methods to attain to truth – no, not at all, there is no method to attain to truth – all those methods are nothing but efforts to wake you up, to bring you back home, WHERE YOU REALLY ARE. They are only to destroy your dream.
Sannyas is renouncing your dreams, renouncing your sleep. But this is possible only if you love the man, if you love the Master, so much that you say ’Okay, if he is going to hell, we are going with him. Hell will be heaven with him. Without him we are not going to heaven.’ Only then can you be awakened.
Don’t ask for any way, Rashid. That’s why Jesus makes a very strange statement: ’I am the way.’ And Christians have missed the point; they have interpreted it in such a way that the whole thing has gone wrong. When Jesus says ’I am the way’ he is simply saying ’Meet a Master and fall in love. Follow a Master.’ He is not saying anything about Jesus, he is simply saying to his disciples ’I am the way. Fall in love with me so that I can awaken you, because you will be able to bear awareness only if you are in tremendous love; otherwise, you will not be able to forgive the man, and you will want to fall asleep again and you will want to start dreaming again.’ When Jesus says ’I am the way’ his ’I’ contains all the Masters of the world – past, present, future. That ’I’ has nothing to do with Jesus as such, that ’I’ is the ’I’ of all the Masters.
Exactly that is what Krishna said to Arjuna, his disciple, ’Leave all aside. Come to my feet – surrender to me.’ That’s all. One starts thinking ’How can it be so easy?’ It is easy because you have never left the place, it is easy because you are already there. The Master is not giving anything, he is simply taking away that which you don’t have and he is
giving you that which you already have. The work of the Master is almost like magic, that’s why in the old days the Master was thought to be a magician. He takes away things which you don’t have and he gives you things which you already have – this is magic.
Don’t ask for a way. I am the way. Look into my eyes. Get into this enchanted space that I am. Yes, it is an enchanted space. Martin Heidegger calls it ’enchanted regioning’, not just region but regioning, because region makes it look static and it is dynamic. That’s why he does not call it space, because space seems static. And it is not a noun, it is a verb – a living verb.
A Master is a dynamo. A Master is a flow, an overflow, a river. Get into it. And you need not even swim, the river is already moving. You can just relax with the river, and one day you will find that you have arrived. And that day can be this moment – it all depends on your courage, on the intensity of your love.
There is no need for any way. And if you try to find a way, you will find not one, you will find many, and you will be distracted by all those ways for millions of lives. You try one way then it fails, then you try another way and that fails, and you try another… And they are all bound to fail, they are doomed to fail because you are trying to do something which is absolutely absurd.
It is like searching for the horse on which you are riding. You can rush in all directions – and you can have a very beautiful horse, a very powerful horse, and he can take you to the farthest corners of the earth – but still you will not find the horse because you are already riding on it. Let me awaken you. Allow me to take your dreams away. What more way do you need? I am the way.
Source – Osho Book “The Sun Rises in the Evening”