The Great Path - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 2. THE STARS MIRRORED
necessarily imply that you are hearing what I say. You hear but you are also weaving dreams inside.
A constant stream of dreams keeps flowing within you. Even when awake, dreams keep turning
within you. Close your eyes and look inside and you will always find something going on.
It is just like we see the stars at night, and they disappear in the daytime; but it is only the light of the
sun that hides them. So do not think that they disappear during the day. They are very much there.
If you go down a deep well and look up you will be able to see them. You need darkness to see the
stars. They are not visible because of the sunlight.
The same is the case with dreams. It is not that dreams are seen only at night, but at night the eyes
are closed, darkness comes, and the dreams stand out against this darkness. In the daytime the
eyes are open and all your attention is taken up by a hundred other things. But the dreams keep
happening none the less. You simply do not see them. Shut your eyes and you begin daydreaming
at once. There is a constant under-current which has to be broken. And only if you succeed in
breaking it in the daytime, can you break it in the night; otherwise it is not possible.
All mantras are devices to break this under-current. A person is given a mantra by his guru. He tells
him, ”Repeat it within while you go to the market, sell your goods. Let the sound of the chanting
resound inside.” So this man attends to his daily business but lets the mantra flow within at the same
time. What does this mean? The energy which previously was being used up in creating dreams
is now converted into a stream of Ram-Ram. So now the chanter creates his own dream within
himself. Outwardly he attends to his worldly duties; inwardly he keeps up a constant remembrance
of Ram-Ram... This does not lead him to Rama, but it will help him break the dream chain. The day
you find that there is an incessant flow of Ram-Ram instead of dreams, you will know that you have
succeeded in breaking the chain of dreams during the daytime.
So the success of the mantra can only be gauged in dreams, never during the day. How is it
possible? If you repeat the mantra throughout the day, there will not be any dream at night, the
chant will flow into your sleep. It will be much more intense than you can imagine.
Swami Ram used to repeat this mantra Ram-Ram. Once he was a guest of his friend Sardar Puran
Singh. They were alone in a small hut high up in the Himalayas. There was not a soul around for
miles and miles. One night Sardar could not sleep well because of the heat and the mosquitoes.
And what did he find? The sound of Ram-Ram hovered in the hut. He was a little frightened. Could
there be someone apart from himself and his sleeping friend in the room? Swami Ram was fast
asleep. The Sardar got up, took the lamp and looked everywhere inside and out. There was no one.
He came back into the hut, and to his surprise he realized that the sound was louder in the room
than outside. He raised the lamp and held it over Swami Ram’s face: Is he awake and chanting the
mantra? He was fast asleep. In fact he was snoring. And, wonder of wonders, the sound became
louder as he approached the swami. He brought his ear closer to Swami Ram and found that each
pore in his body was vibrating with the sound Ram-Ram.
This happens when remembrance becomes very intense. A great deal of energy is used up in
creating dreams. You do not get them without a price. Dreams are worthless in themselves, but
the price you pay is immense because you spend the entire night in dreaming. Recently, in the
West there has been a lot of research on dreams. The scientists say that a normal, healthy person
dreams eight dreams each night. Each dream lasts around fifteen minutes. This means that every
The Great Path 38 Osho