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 nobody when you are ordinary this is the most extraordinary phenomenon possible.

This book is a glorious mixture of no-nonsense Zen and sub lime 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.

Osho defies categorization. His thousands of talks cover everything from the individual quest for meaning to the most urgent social and political issues facing society today. Osho’s books are not written but are transcribed from audio and video recordings of his extemporaneous talks to international audiences. As he puts it, “So remember: whatever I am saying is not just for you... I am talking also for the Future generations.”

Osho has been described by The Sunday Times in London as one 0f the “1000 Makers of the 20th Century” and by American author Tom Robbins as “the most dangerous man since Jesus Christ.” Sunday Mid-Day (India) has selected Osho as one of ten people — along with Gandhi, Nehru and Buddha — who have changed the destiny of India.

About his own work Osho has said that he is helping to create the conditions For the birth of a new kind of human being. He often characterizes this new human being as “Zorba the Buddha” capable both of enjoying the earthy pleasures of a Zorba the Greek and the silent serenity of a Gautama the Buddha.

Running like a thread through all aspects of Osho’s talks and meditations is a vision that encompasses both the timeless wisdom of all ages past and the highest potential of today’s (and tomorrow’s) science and technology.

Osho is known for his revolutionary contribution to the science of inner transformation, with an approach to meditation that acknowledges the accelerated pace of contemporary life. His unique OSHO Active Meditations are designed to first release the accumulated stresses of body and mind, so that it is then easier to take an experience of stillness and thought-free relaxation into daily life.

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 horn, 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, hut 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 he 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 t 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 hack.