The Great Path - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 9. RIGHT SEARCH, WRONG DIRECTION
or a Moslem only causes the temples to fight against the mosques, and this earth is being deprived
of religion in the process. All religions cause strife with one another because all religions become
mere ideas. Religion is only one – your Shivahood. You yourself are God. Religion is no more than
this; it cannot cause any strife, for how can there be fighting when there are no thoughts? What kind
of opposition can there be? What kind of support can there be?
The body separates you from others. Thoughts separate you still further. Understand one thing
clearly, though it may appear contradictory: that which disconnects you from your own self also
disconnects you from others. The body has separated you from yourself; it has also estranged you
from others. Thoughts have disconnected you even more from yourself, and just as much from
others. The day you have peeled away the covers of the body and thought, and are established in
your own nature, the day you become pure existence without any shell, you will find that you have
become one with all, for these are not two Gods. Then the God outside you and the God inside you
merge into one. The space within the walls of the vessel of clay and the space without will become
one. The vessel will break. Identification is the vessel.
As you continue removing the layers – and by layers I mean the identification with things, which are
not you! – you are proceeding into meditation. Meditation is breaking identifications. Meditation is
the key. By and by all that remains is what you are. When you have removed every layer of the onion
you have nothing in your hands but emptiness. This emptiness, this very void, is your godliness, your
Shivahood.
Have you ever seen a Shivalingam? It is a phallic representation of Shiva, but its form is the void. It
is made that way intentionally. It has no face of Shiva. There is no more beautiful statue or image
of anyone, for it has no face. It is the form of the void. As you go deeper and deeper and deeper
into yourself, this very voidless form will begin to appear within you, and you are getting nearer
and nearer to Shiva. The day you become an illuminated emptiness, a light that is formless and
nameless, from then on whatever you say is japa, the mantra, the remembrance.
Right now, whatever you say is a deception. Your religious actions are non-religious. Right now you
cannot do otherwise. You try to save yourself from one mistake and you commit a thousand others.
The best thing to do under the circumstances is to do nothing. Start breaking your identifications.
Just be awake... and do nothing! Otherwise, in trying to correct one error you will find yourself
caught in another.
Mulla Nasruddin was sitting at the seashore, very calm. Another man sat next to him, who was very
upset. At last, with great anger in his voice, he said to the Mulla, ”Excuse me, but is that your child
who is throwing sand at me?”
No,” said the Mulla with a kindly smile. ”That is my nephew. The one who just broke your umbrella
and is busy filling your shoes with water is my son.”
You try to right one thing and another goes wrong. The excuses you put forward for your mistakes
turn out to be bigger mistakes. In ancient times a king always kept a fool in his court to remind him
always of the fact that man’s intelligence is not much of an intelligence.
A king kept a jester at his court. One day, as the king stood before a mirror, the jester suddenly
came from behind him and gave him a sound kick. The king fell down and was badly bruised; the
The Great Path 167 Osho