The Great Path - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 2. THE STARS MIRRORED
But there is a uniqueness about dreams: they are all illusions. So an extraordinary experiment is
carried out with dreams. The moment you come to know that dreams are illusory, they are lost;
there is nothing to be seen. When the seen is lost, the seer comes into focus. As long as there is
something to see, you look outside because the scene attracts. When the scene is no more and the
screen is empty – when even the screen is not there, you are left alone. This is why people meditate
with closed eyes. To call the world maya, illusion, is a method.
The world is real. It does not depend on what you think. Even if it is a dream, it is the dream of
Brahman, and not yours. But there are your personal dreams which take shape at night; therefore,
when you shatter your own dreams a very revolutionary thing happens: the space then becomes
empty. There is nothing to see. The play is over and it is time to go home. Now what will you do
sitting there? This is the moment that the eyes suddenly turn in, for there is nothing left outside. So
the energy that flowed out to the objects now turns inwards to the observer.
Meditation is energy turning towards oneself. And the moment energy turns inwards you can be
conscious, even in sushupti, deep sleep. Because in deep sleep you exist but the world does
not exist, the dreams do not exist. Your attention was entangled in observing the world and your
dreams; you remained unconscious in deep sleep. Now this entanglement is uprooted. You have no
connection with the seen and you can be without it. When the lamp burns, it does not care whether
anyone passes through its light or not. Now your consciousness will turn inwards, and you will be
awake even in deep sleep.
The experiment you have to make after you wake up from the dream is that do not to open your
eyes when the dream disappears, because once the eyes open, the world of objects is present all
around. The ’seen’ comes back. So when you wake up from the dream, do not open your eyes.
Keep looking intently at the void within. The dream has vanished. There is nothing now. So go on
observing the void intently. In doing this you will find that your consciousness has turned inwards.
Then you are awake even in deep sleep. This is what Krishna means when he says in the Gita that
the yogi is awake even when everyone else sleeps. What is sleep to others is no sleep to the yogi.
He is awake even in deep sleep.
Thus, when you see each of these states separately you invariably step into the fourth state. ’Turiya’
means ”the fourth” – simply that! There is no need to give it any other meaning. It is enough just
to refer to it as ’the fourth’, because all meanings bind; all words are bondages. Only a gesture is
enough. Because it is boundless and infinite.
As soon as you step outside the three states, you become God. Because you have entered the
three, you are constricted. It is just as if from an open space you enter a tunnel and the tunnel gets
narrower and narrower. By the time you reach the five senses it has become very narrow. Now you
have to go backwards. As you go further and further back, your space increases. The day you find
yourself outside the three, you are the great expanse of space. Then you are God Himself.
Take another example: You look at the sky through a telescope. Through a very small opening you
concentrate your attention on something outside, and you become one with it. When you take your
eyes off the telescope, you realize that you are not the telescope. Similarly, you are not the eyes,
but you have concentrated on the eyes in millions of lives. You are not the ears, but you have been
listening through them for infinite lives. You are not the hands, but you are so used to touching with
The Great Path 30 Osho