Osho – The flower of consciousness opens up only when all the garbage that one has accumulated over many many lives is thrown out, otherwise there is no space for the one-thousand petalled lotus to open. It needs a space and we are so full of junk, useless junk, full of memories which are of no use any more. We go on piling up files and files of memories, not only of this life, of many many lives. They are all there, now absolutely useless, but the functioning of our mind is like the functioning of any bureaucracy.
I have heard that in the White House the president was very worried because so many files had accumulated. He told his secretary to destroy all those files which were useless and to only keep those which had any use. The secretary immediately started working. He ordered many many people to first make copies of the files in case something was needed sometime, and then to destroy the files. This is how bureaucracy works. Now, this is unnecessary work: you are destroying the file but keeping a copy — then what is wrong with keeping the file?
We go on accumulating useless, irrelevant memories, imagination, desires — desires that we know are unfulfilable, still we carry on, still we again start fantasising. We have fantasised many times and we know it is pointless. Sometimes even in the middle of the fantasy you realise what you are doing.
Taking your bath you start thinking that you have become the president of the country and that if you become the president you are going to do this and that…. And then suddenly the cold water reminds you what you are doing — you are not the president of the country and you are unnecessarily getting worried. But it will come again.
There are so many desires and so many thoughts and there is no space left; hence in the East our emphasis has been on how to empty the whole inside of our being. And there is no need to keep any copies because the more spacious we are, the more conscious we become, and that consciousness is enough to respond to any situation. You need not have notes, that consciousness is enough to tackle any challenge. What is the point of carrying an unnecessary load?
As one empties oneself one becomes aware of two things: the less the burden, the more efficient one is; the less the burden, the more responsible, the more capable of response, one is. Now one is not carrying readymade answers, and because one is not carrying readymade answers one can be more in tune with reality, one can see reality as it is and can respond accordingly. Otherwise the mind always reacts, it never responds. It uses the old readymade answer, it may not fit at all; and then you fail, then you fall short.
A man of absolute emptiness always has the right response. He never fails, he never repents, he never feels guilty, he never looks back. Each act is finished so totally that there is no question of thinking about it again and again. He simply moves ahead, unburdened of the past.
That is the meaning of Shunyo emptying oneself totally. And then glory, ultimate glory, is yours. In that emptiness you have enough space for your consciousness to unfold. Symbolically we have called it a one-thousand petalled lotus. It is such a huge phenomenon that it needs the whole sky. Our inner being is as vast as the sky if we just get rid of the junk. So I don’t want my sannyasins to renounce anything except the junk, except the rubbish, the dust that one gathers on the way.
Source – Osho Book “I Am Not As Thunk As You Drink I Am”