The Great Path - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 10. THE ETERNAL SPRING
Don’t ever pluck an unripe mantra or you will be in trouble. It is easy to throw a shoe away, but the
mantra or you will be in trouble. It is easy to throw a show away, but the mantra cannot be so easily
got rid of, for the shoe is external and the mantra is internal. If you get involved in mantra by mistake
it is almost impossible to get free of it. Many religious people go mad, and the reason is only this:
they are in such a great hurry that they pluck the fruit while it is till green. A ripened fruit is very
sweet, while an unripe fruit is not only bitter but acid, and possibly poisonous.
The first layer is the body, so the mantra practice should begin on the body; you are in the body, so
it is there that the cure must begin. If you skip this layer your illness will remain, and in due course
you will find yourself with unripe fruit on your hands. Remember, you can only start from where you
are; if you start somewhere else you are merely dreaming. Tight now you think you are the body, so
you have to begin the mantra experience with the body.
Understand the technique. First, you have to sit quietly for ten minutes, but before you sit you have
to purge yourself off all your restlessness by being totally active for five minutes; dance, jump, skip
and run, whatever is required to satisfy your restlessness. It must be cleansed from every pore, from
every part of the body; only then can you sit in silence for ten minutes. This catharsis is necessary
before you begin to sit in silence; it will require from five to ten minutes, depending on the extent of
your restlessness. Let your body shake, totally, completely, in every possible way, so that for then
minutes it will have no more desire to more to satisfy its craving for activity. Then sit down – so still
that there is not even a hint of movement. Keep the eyes half-closed.
Do not attempt this practice in an open place. A closed room, preferable small and empty, is ideal.
There should be nothing inside the room. A church or temple or mosque is ideal because of its
emptiness. If this is not possible, clear out a corner of your room; let there be nothing in it. Remove
all the pictures of gods and goddesses, for they too can create problems.
Only emptiness is God. All else is a play of the mind. And the mind is so crazy! Look for yourself
at the shrines that people set up in their houses to worship in. You will find pictures of gods and
goddesses hanging all over the walls. They may be cut out of the newspaper or they may be calendar
pictures; it is the same thing. The walls are plastered with them. By looking at their walls you can
tell what goes on in people’s minds.
When people worship their household gods they hurriedly enter the shrine room, sprinkle a little
over the whole collection of deities, fold their hands and believe that they have satisfied every one
of them. None of them has been worshipped. If you try to satisfy them all, you haven’t paid homage
to any of them; but if you truly pay homage to one, they are all satisfied. Achieve one and you have
achieved all; and the one is within, not without!
The emptier the site, the better it is; fir the search is for that very emptiness; the room will be the
symbol for your internal emptiness. The room should be small; that helps the mantra. And it should
also be empty; that also helps. Let the eyes be half-open; for when the eyes are fully opened you
stand at the door with your back to the house and face towards the outer world. You cannot make a
complete about-face, for a complete change is not easy. So keep the eyes half-open and half-closed;
let them be half-closed to the world and half-opened to your inwardness. Begin here!
Remember, there is no hurry. When the eyes are half-opened you experience a state of drowsiness.
Keep looking at the tip of your nose; keep your eyes open only to that extent. You are not to
The Great Path 177 Osho