Devi Asks:
Shiva answering questions of Devi Parvati
O Shiva, what is your reality?
What is this wonder-filled universe?
What constitutes seed?
Who centers the universal wheel?
What is this life beyond form pervading forms?
How may we enter it fully,
above space and time,
names and descriptions?
Let my doubts be cleared!
Osho:
Truth is always here. It is already the case. It is not something to be achieved in the future. You are the truth just here and now, so it is not something which is to be created or something which is to be devised or something which is to be sought. Understand this very clearly; then these techniques will be easy to understand and also to do.
Mind is a mechanism of desiring. Mind is always in desire, always seeking something, asking for something. Always the object is in the future; mind is not concerned with the present at all. In this very moment the mind cannot move — there is no space. The mind needs the future in order to move. It can move either in the past or in the future. It cannot move in the present; there is no space.
The truth is in the present, and mind is always in the future or in the past, so there is no meeting between mind and truth. When the mind is seeking worldly objects it is not so difficult, the problem is not absurd; it can be solved. But when the mind starts seeking the truth the very effort becomes nonsense, because the truth is here and now and the mind is always then and there. There is no meeting.
So understand the first thing: you cannot seek truth. You can find it, but you cannot seek it. The very seeking is the hindrance. The moment you start seeking you have moved away from the present, away from yourself, because you are always in the present. The seeker is always in the present and the seeking is in the future, you are not going to meet whatsoever you are seeking. Lao Tzu says, “Seek not; otherwise you will miss. Seek not and find. Don’t seek and find.”
All these techniques of Shiva’s are simply turning the mind from the future or the past to the present. That which you are seeking is already there, it is the case already. The mind has to be turned from seeking to non-seeking. It is difficult. If you think about it intellectually it is very difficult. How to turn the mind from seeking to non-seeking? — because then the mind makes non-seeking itself the object! Then the mind says, “Don’t seek.”
Then the mind says, “I should not seek.” Then the mind says, “Now non-seeking is my object. Now I desire the state of desirelessness.” The seeking has entered again, the desire has come again through the back door. That is why there are people who are seeking worldly objects, and there are people who think they are seeking non-worldly objects.
All objects are worldly because “seeking” is the world. So you cannot seek anything non-worldly. The moment you seek, it becomes the world. If you are seeking God, your God is part of the world. If you are seeking MOKSHA — liberation — NIRVANA, your liberation is part of the world, your liberation is not something that transcends the world, because seeking is the world, desiring is the world.
So you cannot desire nirvana, you cannot desire non-desire. If you try to understand intellectually, it will become a puzzle. Shiva says nothing about it, he immediately proceeds to give techniques. They are non-intellectual.
He doesn’t say to Devi, “The truth is here. Don’t seek it and you will find it.” He immediately gives techniques. Those techniques are non-intellectual. Do them, and the mind turns. The turning is just a consequence, just a by-product — not an object. The turning is just a by-product.
If you do a technique, your mind will turn from its journey into the future or the past. Suddenly you will find yourself in the present. That is why Buddha has given techniques, Lao Tzu has given techniques, Krishna has given techniques. But they always introduce their techniques with intellectual concepts.
Only Shiva is different.
He immediately gives techniques, and no intellectual understanding, no intellectual introduction, because he knows that the mind is tricky, the most cunning thing possible. It can turn anything into a problem. Non-seeking will become the problem. There are people who come to me who ask how not to desire. They are desiring non-desire.
Somebody has told them, or they have read somewhere, or they have heard spiritual gossip, that if you do not desire you will reach bliss, if you do not desire you will be free, if you do not desire there will be no suffering. Now their minds hanker to attain that state where there is no suffering, so they ask how not to desire. Their minds are playing tricks.
They are still desiring, it is only that now the object has changed. They were desiring money, they were desiring fame, they were desiring prestige, they were desiring power. Now they are desiring non-desire. Only the object has changed, and they remain the same and
They are still desiring, it is only that now the object has changed. They were desiring money, they were desiring fame, they were desiring prestige, they were desiring power. Now they are desiring non-desire. Only the object has changed, and they remain the same and their desiring remains the same. But now the desire has become more deceptive.
Because of this, Shiva proceeds immediately with no introduction whatsoever. He immediately starts talking about techniques. Those techniques, if followed, suddenly turn your mind: it comes to the present. And when the mind comes to the present it stops, it is no more. You cannot be a mind in the present, that is impossible. Just now, if you are here and now, how can you be a mind? Thoughts cease because they cannot move.
The present has no space in which to move; you cannot think. If you are in this very moment, how can you move? Mind stops, you attain to no-mind. So the real thing is how to be here and now. You can try, but effort may prove futile — because if you make it a point to be in the present, then this point has moved into the future. When you ask how to be in the present, again you are asking about the future. This moment is passing in the inquiry, “How to be present?
How to be here and now?” This present moment is passing in the inquiry, and your mind will begin to weave and create dreams in the future: some day you will be in a state of mind where there is no movement, no motive, no seeking, and then there will be bliss — so how to be in the present?
Shiva doesn’t say anything about it, he simply gives a technique. You do it, and suddenly you find you are here and now. And your being here and now is the truth, and your being here and now is the freedom, and your being here and now is the nirvana.
The first nine techniques are concerned with breathing.
So let us understand something about breathing, and then we will proceed to the techniques. We are breathing continuously from the moment of birth to the moment of death. Everything changes between these two points. Everything changes, nothing remains the same, only breathing is a constant thing between birth and death. The child will become a youth; the youth will become old. He will be diseased, his body will become ugly, ill, everything will change. He will be happy, unhappy, in suffering; everything will go on changing. But whatsoever happens between these two points, one must breathe.
Whether happy or unhappy, young or old, successful or unsuccessful — whatsoever you are, it is irrelevant — one thing is certain: between these two points of birth and death you must breathe. Breathing will be a continuous flow; no gap is possible. If even for a single moment you forget to breathe, you will be no more. That is why You are not required to breathe, because then it would be difficult. Someone might forget to breathe for a single moment, and then nothing could be done.
So, really, you are not breathing, because you are not needed. you are fast asleep, and breathing goes on; you are unconscious, and breathing goes on; you are in a deep coma, and breathing goes on. you are not required; breathing is something which goes on in spite of you. It is one of the constant factors in your personality — that is the first thing. It is something which is very essential and basic to life — that is the second thing.
You cannot be alive without breath. So breath and life have become synonymous. Breathing is the mechanism of life, and life is deeply related with breathing. That is why in India we call it PRANA. We have given one word for both — PRANA means the vitality, the aliveness. Your life is your breath. Thirdly, your breath is a bridge between you and your body.
Constantly, breath is bridging you to your body, connecting you, relating you to your body. Not only is the breath a bridge to your body, it is also a bridge between you and the universe. The body is just the universe which has come to you, which is nearer to you. Your body is part of the universe. Everything in the body is part of the universe — every particle, every cell. It is the nearest approach to the universe.
Breath is the bridge. If the bridge is broken, you are no more in the body. If the bridge is broken, you are no more in the universe. You move into some unknown dimension; then you cannot be found in space and time. So, thirdly, breath is also the bridge between you, and space and time. Breath, therefore, becomes very significant — the most significant thing. So the first nine techniques are concerned with breath. If you can do something with the breath, you will suddenly turn to the present.
If you can do something with breath, you will attain to the source of life. If you can do something with breath, you can transcend time and space. If you can do something with breath, you will be in the world and also beyond it. Breath has two points. One is where it touches the body and the universe, and another is where it touches you and that which transcends the universe. We know only one part of the breath. When it moves into the universe, into the body, we know it. But it is always moving from the body to the “no-body,” from the “no-body” to the body.
We do not know the other point. If you become aware of the other point, the other part of the bridge, the other pole of the bridge, suddenly you will be transformed, transplanted into a different dimension. But remember, what Shiva is going to say is not yoga, it is tantra. Yoga also works on breath, but the work of yoga and tantra is basically different.
Yoga tries to systematize breathing. If you systematize your breathing your health will improve. If you systematize your breathing, if you know the secrets of breathing, your life will become longer; you will be more healthy and you will live longer. You will be more strong, more filled with energy, more vital, alive, young, fresh. But tantra is not concerned with that. Tantra is concerned not with any systematization of breath, but with using breath just as a technique to turn inward.
One has not to practice a particular style of breathing, a particular system of breathing or a particular rhythm of breathing — no! One has to take breathing as it is. One has just to become aware of certain points in the breathing. There are certain points, but we are not aware of them. We have been breathing and we will go on breathing — we are born breathing and we will die breathing — but we are not aware of certain points. And this is strange.
Man is searching, probing deep into space. Man is going to the moon; man is trying to reach farther, from earth into space, and man has not yet learned the nearest part of his life. There are certain points in breathing which you have never observed, and those points are the doors — the nearest doors to you from where you can enter into a different world, into a different being, into a different consciousness. But they are very subtle.
To observe a moon is not very difficult. Even to reach the moon is not very difficult; it is a gross journey. You need mechanization, you need technology, you need accumulated information, and then you can reach it. Breathing is the nearest thing to you, and the nearer a thing is, the more difficult it is to perceive it. The nearer it is, the more difficult; the more obvious it is, the more difficult. It is so near to you that again there is no space between you and your breathing. Or, there is such a small space that you will need a very minute observation, only then will you become aware of certain points. These points are the basis of these techniques. So now I will take each technique.
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