Pythagoras, The golden verses of Pythagoras, Vol. 1 Philosophia Perennis Chapter 9: Bliss Beyond All Duality, Question 1

The first question

Question 1

OSHO, WHAT IS THE TOTALITY OF MYSELF? WHY DO I GO ON AVOIDING IT?

Vasumati,

THE TOTALITY OF YOURSELF has nothing to do with you. It is not your totality or my totality; totality is one -- in which we all disappear. That is the fear. You can remain only if you are partial, if you are only a part. The moment you want to be the total, you will have to commit a kind of suicide, a spiritual suicide. You will have to disappear.

If the dewdrop wants to be the ocean, the only possible way is to disappear into the ocean, to die as a dewdrop. The moment a dewdrop dies as a dewdrop, it becomes the ocean. That creates fear.

People talk about God, but nobody wants to lose himself. Hence the talk of God remains impotent, meaningless. People worship God but they keep a distance. They go the temples, but really they never go -- because they go on clinging to their idea of themselves.

There are two ways to be. One is as an ego, separate from the total -- which is illusory because there is no way to be really separate. You can only believe that you are separate; deep down you remain one with the whole. Hence all that you create around the idea of the ego remains illusory. In the East we call it MAYA: MAYA means a world of futile dreams.

The other way to be is: not to be separate -- losing one's definition, losing all demarcations, distinctions. Then you enter into the world of the real, the world of BRAHMA. Then you transcend dreams. And the basic, fundamental dream is the dream of the ego, the dream that "I am." You are not, I am not, only God is.

But that is a great risk. Disappearing into the vastness of existence frightens, scares. You feel so cozy in your small world of dreams; surrounded by your own dreams it is so warm, you are so sheltered, secure.

That's why people even go on clinging to miseries -- because those miseries are part, an essential part of the dreamworld you live in. Your happiness, your unhappiness, are two aspects of your dreams. The real knows no happiness, no unhappiness: the real is beyond all duality. There is utter bliss. But remember, bliss is not happiness; you will not find any happiness in bliss, you will not find any unhappiness either.

It is a totally different world of which you cannot have any notion unless you have tasted of it. Bliss can have no meaning for you. Bliss is meaningful only to Buddhas, to those who have known. But to know, you have to fulfill a basic requirement: you have to disappear. It is a very paradoxical requirement: to be, you have not to be.

Vasumati, you ask: WHAT IS THE TOTALITY OF MYSELF?

When the totality is, there is no self left -- mine or thine. And when the self is there, there is no totality. The self can only be a fragment, the self can only exist as a fragment. And the smaller the fragment, the better the self can exist. That's why egoistic people go on becoming pettier and pettier, smaller and smaller.

The more egoistic a person is, the more mean, mediocre and small he is. He has no space within himself. He cannot contain anything except his own ego. He is so small that only this small word 'I' is enough to fill his whole space.

The more you lose the ego, the more it becomes melting, merging, the bigger space you have. Of course, the ego is very definite -- you can define it, you can pinpoint it, you can say, "This is me." It has a certain clarity. The total is a very mysterious cloud. You cannot pinpoint it, you cannot indicate it: "This is it." It is so big and it is spread all over. It is beginningless, endless, it is infinite.

Unless one is ready to go into this mysterious chaos of the whole, one will not be able to take even a single step into it. It is dangerous for the ego, it is dangerous for your so-called intelligence. It is a mad love affair.

Unless you are in such a mad love affair with existence that you are ready to die for it, you will go on clinging to your small ego.

I have heard:

Two inmates of a mental asylum were trying to escape. They reached the outermost wall but were unable to climb over it. "What do we do now?" the first inmate asked.

"I know," replied the second. "I will shine my torch up to the top of the wall. You climb up the beam of the torch to the top and then help me up."

"Nothing doing," replied the first. "I am not THAT crazy. I would only get half way up and you would turn off the light!"

To go into the whole, you will have to be THAT crazy. It is a death, it is a disappearance, it is risky, it is a gamble. You cannot know what is going to happen. You can only know what you are going to lose; you cannot know beforehand what you are going to gain. Unless you are tremendously courageous you will not take that step -- it is jumping into an abyss and the abyss is bottomless.

But those who have jumped have arrived. The moment they died as separate egos they were resurrected as divine. To die as a drop is the only way to become the ocean.

That's what sannyas is all about -- driving you crazy, helping to drop your so-called cleverness, intellectuality, your knowledge. Sannyas is creating such an intense longing in you to die into God -- and that is possible only if you are not too much concerned about what is going to happen then. If you are not too much concerned about the result, only then can you take the jump.

Slowly slowly, being with somebody who has taken the jump, you become infected. Religion is infection: there is no other way to learn religion. It cannot be taught, it can only be caught.

Pythagoras

VOL. 1, PHILOSOPHIA PERENNIS

Chapter-9

Bliss Beyond All Duality