The Great Path - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 9. RIGHT SEARCH, WRONG DIRECTION
Thus the sadhu finds moments of worldliness within him and the non-sadhu finds moments of
saintliness. There is no sinner who has no virtuous moments in his life and no saint without moments
of sin in his. The one is tired of virtue, the other is tired of sin, so that have to relax and rest by doing
the opposite, in order to remove the burden from the mind.
A saint is a person whose saintliness has not been acquired through practice; it is the outcome of
his nature. Then there is no question of a rest. You do not need to take a rest from breathing. You
do not have to take a rest from such time as the Shiva-like state goes deep inside you, whatever
you do will be superficial. It is like covering a stinking body with perfumes and fine clothes. You may
succeed in deceiving others, but how will you hide it from yourself?
That is why we see our sadhus looking so depressed. There is no trace of cheerfulness in them.
To others they look like sadhus, but they themselves don’t feel like sadhus; there is no dance, no
music in their lives. Their anger and greed and lust is the same – just repressed. Their outer garb
may hide the fact from you, but how can they hide it from themselves? And this keeps pricking at
their conscience and makes them unhappy happy. As long as a sadhu does not laugh and dance
spontaneously, know that his saintliness is cultivated; and cultivated saintliness is false. The only
true saintliness is spontaneous; therefore Kabir says time and again: Spontaneous samadhi is best,
my friend.
Spontaneous samadhi is that which needs no looking after, but this will happen only when the Shivastate
becomes the core of your being, when you become Shiva-like. Remember that this is no ideal
to be achieved at some time in the future; if you understand then it can happen this very moment.
Actions need time, and this is no action; it is a jump. This is knowledge, you need only recognize
it. It is just as if a man has a diamond in his pocket but he stands in the marketplace begging alms.
Then suddenly someone reminds him, ”Why do you beg for alms? There is something sparkling in
your pocket!”He puts his hand in his pocket and is shocked to find that he had a diamond there all
along.
Shivahood lives inside you. It is your eternal treasure. There is no need to postpone its attainment:
you have only to turn your eyes inward. Had it been somewhere in the future then perhaps you
would have needed time – maybe a number of births – to attain it. But Shivahood has not to be
attained; it has to be uncovered. It has to be unfolded. As you would peel an onion layer by layer
until ultimately you find mere emptiness, so also man has to uncover himself layer by layer.
Shivahood is like emptiness. Let us understand the various layers so that it becomes easy to unfold
them, so that your life becomes Shiva-like and your every utterance a remembrance, a japa.
What is the first layer? The first layer is the body. The majority of people build their identity on their
body and consider themselves to be nothing more than the body. It is like spending your life on the
steps on the palace gate, taking it to be the palace. You have no idea that this is just the stairway
leading to the palace. You drink and eat, you marry and raise a family – all on the porch outside.
Your children know nothing about the palace, for the were born on the steps!To them the steps are
their home. They never go and knock at the gates. Perhaps the gates have rusted or become one
with the wall, so that now no one even knows where the gates were.
The first layer is the physical body, and you live there, entirely within the body. You establish an
identity with it, which makes you feel that you are the body. The body is mine, but it is not me. That
The Great Path 161 Osho