The Great Path - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 2. THE STARS MIRRORED
After a few days you will find that in the middle of a dream you will suddenly become aware that it
is a dream. As soon as you remember that it is a dream, the dream breaks, because the dream
works only in the absence of consciousness. Then you will be filled with bliss such as you have
never known before. Your sleep will vanish, dreams will disappear, and a deep light will surround
you. The dreams of an enlightened person disappear, because in sleep he also remembers that
they are dreams.
Shankara’s Vedanta propounds the concept that the universe is an illusion. This philosophy is an
experiment of the same kind.
The sannyasin has to remember constantly that whatever is happening is a dream. While getting
up in the morning, walking on the road, in the midst of the marketplace, he has to remember:
”Everything is a dream.” Why? Because this is the method. It is a process. If you experiment
constantly for eight hours, this remembrance will penetrate so deeply that you will remember it even
in the middle of the dream; you will remember that it is a dream.
At present you are unable to remember. Actually, you are doing it even now – but in the reverse
order. All your waking hours you feel and understand that whatever you see is real. And that is why
dreams seem real at night, because the feeling is very strong.
What can be more false than dreams? How many times on waking up have you realized their falsity,
their uselessness? Yet every night you make the same mistake. Why? There must be a very deep
reason behind this folly. The reason is: in your waking state you take everything to be true. If you
take everything you see to be real, then how can the dreams you see at night appear to be illusory?
You take them to be real.
The maya experiment is just the opposite. Whatever you see during the day, you remember that this
is unreal. You forget again and again, but once again you pull yourself together. You remind yourself
that everything you see is nothing but a huge drama in which you are only a spectator. You are not
the actor, not the doer, but only a witness.
If you nurture this feeling, it becomes a constant flow within. Finally the dream disappears in the
night, and this is a great attainment. If the dream is shattered, you are ready to take the third step.
If the dream is shattered, you can take the third step of retaining consciousness in deep sleep. But
right now this is difficult for you. It is not possible to do it all at once; you must proceed step by step.
When the dream breaks down, there is nothing to see. But in the daytime when the eyes are open,
objects are very much visible. No matter how much you believe that it is illusory, the objects will
go on existing. No matter how much Shankara says that the world is an illusion, you must use a
door for exit, you cannot walk through walls. In spite of everything being an illusion, you will eat food
and not pebbles. No matter how much you maintain that all is illusion, it requires your presence to
pronounce these words. If you do not exist, who will utter them?
So no matter how much you strengthen the feeling that the outside world is illusion, the world of
objects is going to remain. If someone hits your head with a stone, you will bleed. You may not feel
sorry, you may not complain, you may say that it is maya, but the incident has occurred nevertheless.
The Great Path 29 Osho