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LISTEN TO OSHO SPEAK ON THIS MEDITATION

AS, SUBJECTIVELY, LETTER FLOW INTO WORDS AND WORDS INTO SENTENCES, AND AS, OBJECTIVELY, CIRCLES FLOW INTO WORLDS AND WORLDS INTO PRINCIPLES, FIND AT LAST THESE CONVERGING IN OUR BEING


That too is an imaginative technique. The ego is always afraid -- afraid of being vulnerable, open; afraid something may enter and destroy it. So the ego creates a citadel around it; you start living in a walled prison. Nothing should be allowed to enter in you. You are afraid -- if something comes in and disturbs, then what to do? -- so it is better not to allow anything to come in. All communication stops. Even with those you love or you think that you love, there is no communication.

Look at a wife and husband talking. They are not talking to each other; there is no communication. Rather, they are avoiding each other through words. They are talking so that the communication can be avoided. In silence they will become vulnerable, in silence they will come closer, because in silence the ego, the wall, will not be there. So the husband and wife, they will never be silent. They will be talking about something or other just to fill in time, and just so as not to be open to each other. We are so afraid of the other.

I have heard about Mulla Nasrudin, that one day as he was just walking out of his house his wife said, `Nasrudin, have you forgotten what day today is?'

Nasrudin knew about it -- it was their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary -- so he said, `I know it. I know it well.'

The wife persisted, `Then how are we going to celebrate it?'

So Nasrudin said, `Darling, I don't know.' And then he scratched his head, puzzled, and said, `How would it be if we keep two minutes' silence to celebrate it?'

You cannot remain silent with someone; you begin to feel restlessness. In silence, the other enters you. You are open, your doors are open, your windows are open. You are afraid. You go on talking, you go on creating devices to remain closed.

The ego is an enclosure, it is a prison, and the prison is accepted because we feel so insecure. The prison gives a certain feeling of security: you are protected, guarded. To do this technique, this third technique, the first and most basic thing is: know well that life is insecurity. There is no way to make it secure. Whatsoever you do is not going to help. You can create only a fiction of security -- life remains insecure. It is the very nature of it, because death is involved in it, so how can life be secure?

And think for a moment: if life is really secure, it will be already dead. An absolutely totally secure life cannot be alive, because the very adventure is lost. If you are protected from all dangers you will be dead. In the very being of life there is adventure, danger, insecurity. Death is involved.

I love you. I have entered a dangerous path. Now nothing can be secure, but now I will try to make everything secure. For tomorrow, I will kill everything that is alive, because only then can I feel secure tomorrow also. Love is transformed into marriage -- marriage is a security. Love is insecure -- the next moment everything can change. And you have invested so much, and in the next moment the beloved leaves you, or the friend leaves you, and you are left in a vacuum. Love is insecure. You cannot fix the future, you cannot predict. So live is killed and a secure substitute is found -- that is marriage.

With marriage you can be secure; it is predictable. The wife will be your wife the next day; the husband will be your husband in the future also -- but just because you have secured it. And now there is no danger. It is dead. The relationship is dead now, because only dead things can be permanent; alive things are bound to be changing. Change is the very quality of life, and in change is insecurity.

Those who want to enter deeper realms of life must be ready to be insecure, must be ready to be in danger, must be ready to move into the unknown, and must not try in any way to fix the future. The very effort will kill everything. And remember this also: that insecurity is not only alive, it is beautiful. Security is dull, ugly. Insecurity is alive and beautiful. You can be secure if you close your doors and windows and everything. Neither light enters nor air enters; no one enters. You are secure in a way, but you are not living, you have already entered your tomb.

This technique is possible if you are vulnerable, open, not afraid, because this technique is allowing the whole universe to enter in you.

AS, SUBJECTIVELY,

LETTERS FLOW INTO WORDS AND WORDS INTO SENTENCES,

AND AS, OBJECTIVELY,

CIRCLES FLOW INTO WORLDS AND WORLDS INTO PRINCIPLES,

FIND AT LAST THESE CONVERGING IN OUR BEING.

Everything converging in my being... I am standing under the open sky, and the whole existence, from everywhere, from every nook and corner, is converging in me -- your ego cannot exist. In that openness where the whole existence is converging in you, you cannot exist as an I. You will exist as an open space, but not as a crystallized I.

To do this technique start with a small step. Just sit under a tree. The breeze is blowing and the leaves of the tree are rustling. The wind touches you, it moves around you, it passes. But don't allow it just to pass you; allow it to move within you and pass through you. Just close your eyes, and as it is passing through the tree and there is a rustling of the leaves, feel that you are also like a tree, open, and the wind is blowing through you -- not by your side but right through you.

The rustling of the tree will enter in you, and you will feel that from every pore of your body the air is passing. It is really passing through you. It is not only imagination, it is a fact -- you have forgotten. You are not only breathing through the nose, you are breathing through the whole body -- from every pore of it, from millions of pores. If you are allowed to breathe through your nose, but all the pores of your body are closed, painted, you will die within three hours. You cannot be alive just by breathing through the nose. Every cell of your body is a living organism, and every cell is breathing. The air is really passing through you, but you have lost the contact. So sit under a tree and feel.

In the beginning it will look like imagination, but soon it will turn into a reality. It is a reality -- that the air is passing through you. Then sit under a rising sun, and not only feel that the rays of the sun are touching you, but that they are entering you and passing through you, so you become vulnerable, you begin to feel open.

And this can be done with everything. For example, I am speaking here and you are hearing me. You can hear just through the ears, or you can hear through the whole of the body. You can just try it right here, just with a change of the emphasis: you are not hearing my words through the ears only, you are hearing me through the whole of your body. And when you really hear, and when you really listen, it is the whole body that listens. It is not only a part, it is not a fragmented energy that listens, it is the whole of you. The whole of your body is involved in listening -- then my words are passing through you; from every cell, from every pore, you are drinking them. They are being absorbed from everywhere.

You can do this. Just go and sit in a temple. Many worshippers will be coming and going, and the bell of the temple will be hit again and again. Just listen with the whole of your body. The bell is ringing and the whole temple is agog; every wall of it is reflecting. To reflect this, in order to feel that the sound is converging on you, we created a round shape. So from everywhere the sound is thrown back, it converges upon you from everywhere, and you can listen to it through your whole body -- every pore, every cell, listening, drinking, absorbing it, and it is passing through you. You have become porous; everywhere the door is open. You are not a barrier now to anything -- the air, or the words, or the sound, or the rays, or anything. You are not a barrier, you don't resist anything.

When you come to feel that now you don't resist, you are not in a struggle, suddenly you will become aware that the ego is not there, because the ego exists only when you struggle. It is a resistance. Whenever you say no, the ego comes into existence; whenever you say yes, the ego is not there. So I call a man an ASTIK, a real theist, who has said yes to the whole existence; there is no `no' in him, no resistance. He accepts everything, he allows everything to happen. Even if death comes, he will not close his door. The doors will remain open.

This openness has to be brought, only then can you do this technique, because this technique is saying that the whole existence is falling, converging on you -- no resistance, welcoming, allowing it to converge. You will simply disappear, you will become a space, infinite space, because this infinite universe cannot converge on such a narrow atomic thing as the ego. It can converge only when you have become infinite like it, when you have yourself become an infinite space. But this happens. Slowly you have to become more and more sensitive and you have to become aware of your resistances.

We are very resistant. If I touch you, you can feel that you are resisting the touch, you are creating a barrier, so my warmth cannot enter you, my touch cannot enter you. We don't allow each other to touch. If someone touches you, you become alert and the other says `Excuse me'. There is resistance everywhere. If I look at you, you resist, because the look can enter in you, it can penetrate deep, it can stir you, and then what will you do?

And this is not only with strangers. There is no need even with strangers, because no one is a stranger or everyone is a stranger. Just by living under one roof, how can the strangeness be destroyed? Do you know your father who has given you birth? He is a stranger. Do you know your mother? She remains a stranger. So either everyone is a stranger, nor no one is a stranger. But we are afraid and create barriers everywhere. These barriers make us insensitive; then nothing can enter into us.

People come to me and they say, `No one loves. No one loves me.' And I touch that man and I feel he is afraid even of touch. There is a subtle withdrawal. I take his hand in my hand and he has withdrawn. He is not there in the hand; only a dead thing is in my hand -- he has withdrawn. And he says, `No one loves me.' How can anyone love you? And even if the whole world loves, you will not feel it, because you are closed. Love cannot enter you; there is no gate, no door. And you are suffering in your own prison.

If the ego is there, you are closed -- for love, for meditation, for God. So first try to be more sensitive, more vulnerable, open, allowing things to happen to you. Only then can the divine happen, because that is the last happening. If you cannot allow ordinary things to happen to you, how can you allow the ultimate? Because when the ultimate happens to you, you will be no more. You will be simply no more.

Kabir has said, `When I was seeking you, you were not there. And now, when you are there, where is that seeker Kabir? He is no more. So what type of meeting is this?' Kabir wonders, `What type of meeting is this? When I was there, the divine was not. Now the divine is there, but I am not. So what type of meeting is this?'

But really this is the only meeting, because two cannot meet. Ordinarily we think two are needed to meet -- how will the meeting be there if there is only one? So the ordinary logic says that for a meeting at least two are needed, the other is needed. But for a real meeting, for a meeting which we call love, for a meeting which we call prayer, for a meeting which we call samadhi, ecstasy, one is needed. When the seeker is there, the sought is not; and when the sought has come, the seeker has disappeared.

Why is this so? -- because the ego is the barrier. When you feel you are, you are so much that nothing can enter in you. You are filled with your own self. When you are not, then everything can pass through you. You have become so vast that even the divine can pass through you. The whole existence is now ready to pass through you, because you are ready.

So the whole art of religion is how not to be, how to dissolve, how to surrender, how to become an open space.