Returning To the Source: Talks on Zen

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“Zen is ordinary, it makes people just nobodies, and this is the beauty of it. When you become a nobody, when you are ordinary, this is the most extraordinary phenomenon possible.”

Luminous and numinous, Osho’s words dance like fire yet refresh the reader like cool river water. At the core of his message one encounteres the celebration of consciousness, the bliss of awareness, the power of presence, the serenity of silence, and the courage to free oneself from social conditionings and unconscious mind patterns. Perhaps that’s why every attempt to categorize Osho falls short.

What remains true is that his talks and meditations continue to inspire millions around the world. Hailed around the world. Hailed as one of the most innovative and creative contemporary geniuses, Osho is an experience impossible to ignore.

Preface

The whole effort of Zen is how to bring awareness to you. Man is as if asleep. Man lives in a stupor - moves, works, is born, lives and dies, but almost fast asleep, snoring. Man’s mind is very dull. Mind is dullness. Mind has no intelligence in it. There has never been an intelligent mind. I don’t mean that there have never been intelligent people; there have been intelligent people, but there has never been an intelligent mind. Intelligence is something that comes when mind is dropped. Mind is never original, never radical. Mind is always orthodox. Mind is always repetitive, mechanical; it functions like a robot. It goes on repeating the same thing again and again. It is like a computer: whatsoever you feed into it, it goes on chewing it again and again.

Have you watched your own mind and its functioning? Nothing new ever happens to it. Nothing new can happen to it. And because of it you remain oblivious of all that is happening all around you; you go on ignoring it. You are too much attached to this mediocre, stupid instrument. It is good to use it; it is good as a reservoir, as memory; it is good to keep records - but it is not a way to see into reality. It has no eyes.

Mind is blind like a bat. It has no eyes. Mind can never be intelligent - only no-mind is intelligent. Only no-mind is original and radical. Only no-mind is revolutionary - revolution in action.

This mind gives you a sort of stupor. Burdened by the memories of the past, burdened by the projections of the future, you go on living - at the minimum. You don’t live at the maximum. Your flame remains very dim. Once you start dropping thoughts, the dust that you have collected in the past, the flame arises - clean, clear, alive, young. Your whole life becomes a flame, and a flame without any smoke. That is what awareness is.

Consciousness without thinking: that’s what awareness is. Being alert and with no thought. Try it! Whenever you see thinking gathering, disperse it! Pull yourself out of it! Look at the trees with no screens of thinking between you and the trees. Listen to the chirping of the birds with no chirping of the mind inside. Look at the sun rising and feel that inside you also a sun of consciousness is rising…but don’t think about it, don’t assert, don’t state, don’t say. Simply be. And, by and by, you will start feeling glimpses of awareness, sudden glimpses of awareness - as if a fresh breeze has entered into your room which was getting stale and dead; as if a ray of light has entered into the dark night of your soul; as if, suddenly, life has called you back.

Back of the Book

This book is a glorious mixture of no-nonsense Zen and sublime poetic mystery.

Being ordinary, says Osho, is the most extraordinary phenomenon possible. He uses stories about many different Zen masters to illustrate the timeless power and magic of Zen and its potential to transform contemporary humanity.

A Zen master is nothing special: he meditates, but also goes to the forest to cut wood because winter is approaching, and has a wonderful sense of humor. He does many things just like an ordinary man but with an extraordinary awareness.

Zen doesn’t believe in renouncing the world or not renouncing the world; the basic thing is just to be alert wherever we are. Zen gives us total freedom; our lifestyle doesn’t matter. All that counts is our awareness, which will take us back to our original source.

“If you are courageous and you don’t go backwards, if you don’t fall back to the ego and you go on and on, there is a hidden center within you that you have been carrying for many lives. That is your soul, the atman, the self.”