The Great Path - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 8. THE FOURTH STATE
in your monastery. There is no difference if you put on your clothes or discard them; you are still
unconscious. The real question is of breaking this unawareness, not of changing your mode of
action, for that is very easy. If you are unconscious in one form of action, you are bound to be
unconscious in another form of action also.
SO BATHED, HE ENTERS INTO THE STATE OF SELF-AWARENESS.
HE WHO EXPERIENCES THE DIVINE ENERGY PERVADING ALL THINGS, VIEWS ALL THINGS
AS EQUAL.
As soon as a person enters into self-awareness he experiences prana, the life force, for the first time.
Through this experience he sees how everything around him is permeated with the emanations of
the divine energy; he attains dispassion and equality of vision. And as soon as a person knows his
own self, he immediately comes to know that the same flame burns in every one of us.
As long as you have not seen and experienced your own self, the other will always remain alien to
you. For as long as you have not recognized your own self, the other will remain the enemy. As soon
as you witness your own self, you will see the light of the flame within the clay walls of everyone;
you will attain equality of vision. Then there is neither friend nor foe. No one is your own, no one is
a stranger. Then it is actually you who permeates everyone; then there is only one.
In this sutra Shiva says that now you receive tidings that there is one life force everywhere. All lamps
carry the same flame. All drops contain the same ocean. The lamps are different. Some are fair,
some dark, some brown, some yellow; the forms are different and the names are different, but the
flame within has no form and no name. He who has known his own self, knows his own self in
others.
In the very first occurrence of the fourth state you know your own state, but simultaneously the
second even takes place – you know God. You become aware of the soul on one hand, and God,
the supreme soul, stands revealed on the other.
Do not seek God directly, for then He will only be a figment of your imagination and no more. You
can imagine Krishna playing the flute, but this will not reveal God to you, for this is no more than a
dream. It is a pleasant dream but a dream all the same; it does not differ from any other dream.
The mind imagines. You can imagine you are having a vision of Mahavir or Buddha or Rama. Many
people do. All they are doing is dreaming. They are religious dreams, but all dreams are dreams
just the same.
There is no way to seek God directly, for you yourself are the gate. Unless and until you pass through
this gate, his gate will remain closed to you. The soul is the door to God. Here you know your self
and here God stands revealed. Then you see him and him alone everywhere – in trees and stones,
in rocks and streams. It is he and he alone. Somewhere he is asleep, somewhere he is awake,
somewhere he is dreaming, but it is he, and he alone!
This experience of the one, Shiva refers to as ”EXPERIENCING THE DIVINE ENERGY”. This is his
greatest revelation. But it is only attained by him who knows his own self.
The Great Path 155 Osho