The Great Path - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 1. THE DARKNESS INSIDE
So as long as you have not attained to desirelessness, as long as you have not renounced desires
completely, you will go on taking births and wandering in different bodies. And howsoever different
the forms of the body may be, their basic condition is always the same. The ills of the body are
the same, regardless whether it’s a bird’s body or man’s. There is no difference in their miseries,
because the fundamental misery is only one: the soul becoming confined in the body, the entering
of the soul into the prison of body. A prison after all is a prison; it makes no difference whether its
walls are circular or angular no matter what you think.
A friend of mine is a drawing teacher. He was sentenced to prison for three years. When he came
out I asked him how his stay was. He said, ”Everything was alright except the corners of my prison
cell were not set at right angles to each other.” This was the brain of a drawing teacher – he was
upset the corners were not made at ninety degrees. This is what troubled him all three years –
staying in the same prison cell day in and day out staring at the corners which were not at right
angles.
Now what difference does it make if the corners were set at ninety degrees or not? A prison is a
prison. Whether the body is that of a bird or a man does not make much difference. The fact is, you
are imprisoned – and that’s the misery. You got tied down – and that’s the pain. Desire binds. The
desire is the rope that binds us. And remember, except you, no one else is responsible for it.
The fourth sutra is: UDYAMA IS BHAIRAVA. Udyama means the spiritual endeavor by which you
attempt to come out of this prison. And this endeavor is bhairava. Bhairava is a technical term:
’bha’ means that which sustains, that which maintains, ’ra’ means that which destroys, ’va’ means
that which expands. So bhairava means: the Brahman – that which is upholding and sustaining us,
that in which we are born and in which we will eventually disappear; that which constitutes all the
expanse and will ultimately come to shrink; that which is the origin of all and in which all will come
to an end. The total existence is bhairava.
Shiva says: UDYAMA IS BHAIRAVA. The day you begin your spiritual endeavor, you start becoming
bhairava – you start becoming one with God. Your first rays of endeavor, and the journey toward the
sun has begun; the first thought of liberation, and the destination is not far off. Because the first step
is almost half of the journey.
Spiritual endeavor is bhairava. It will take time for you to attain it; it will be a while before you
reach the destination. But as soon have begun the effort and the seed is sown: ”Let me get out of
this prison and be free of this body, let me be relieved of all desires, let me not sow more seeds
and increase my involvement in this world, let me not desire more births.” As soon as the feeling
intensifies within you to overcome your unconsciousness, you start becoming bhairava, you start
becoming one with Brahman. In fact, you are already one with Brahman, just that you need to
remember it. Basically you are that – a stream of the same ocean, a ray of the same sun, a tiny part
of the same vast sky. Once you begin to remember this and the prison walls begin to crumble, you
become one with the infinite space.
UDYAMA IS BHAIRAVA – a very intense effort is needed. The sleep is very deep. Only a consistent
hammering will be able to break it. So being lazy won’t help. You may destroy the sleep today but
create a new one tomorrow. This way you will continue to wander from one birth to another. It would
not do any good if you broke the sleep on the one hand and went on creating anew on the other –
all your effort will be in vain. So udyama means you must make an all out effort.
The Great Path 21 Osho