The Great Path - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 1. THE DARKNESS INSIDE
This is how the ego finds its ways through. Superficially it looks as though you are doing service to
others, but deep down it is your ego that is being serviced by you. And the more subtle the way of
the ego becomes, the more it gets out of reach. The others are unable to gauge it, of course, but
even you yourself fail to have a handle on it. Others are deceived by you, of course, but even you
become the victim of your own deception. Even you get lost in the enigma, the puzzle, you create
for others. We have created our respective mazes with the intent and purpose of befooling others
not realizing that someday we may ourselves be duped by it – and in fact we already are.
So remember one thing: no one belongs to you except your own self. The moment this
remembrance becomes crystallized within you that consciousness is the being, that except
consciousness nothing else is mine – all the rest is extraneous, disparate – the first ray of
transformation enters your life. With that, a crevice appears between you and the society, between
you and your relationships. But the man doesn’t want to take a look at himself. It is difficult to talk
such a look because it requires one to go through a process that is extremely arduous.
One marwari businessman fell in love with a film actress. It was undoubtedly an unusual happening
– a marwari businessman falling in love! Ordinarily, this kind of a person would always stay away
from love. But sometimes even the impossible happens. He fell in love of course, but his was a very
suspicious mind., So he hired a detective in order to keep an eye on the actress and find out if she
was of a lose character. He wanted to have this in black and white before his proposing to her for
marriage.
The detective went ahead and did a lot of investigating. After a week he sent his report. The
report stated, ”The woman is absolutely clean, innocent and without blemish. There is not a trace of
evidence which can place her character in doubt, except that she has been seen in the last few days
moving with a suspicious looking marwari.” The businessman himself was that suspicious looking
marwari.
The eye sees the other. Hands touch the other. The mind thinks of the other. But you always remain
in the dark. Your situation is similar to that of a lamp – the light of which reaches all around except
underneath, except itself. That’s how you function. In the light of your own lamp, in the light of your
consciousness, you wander around and look in all directions; only one remains unknown, unseen,
and that is none other than yourself.
So the first sutra is:
CONSCIOUSNESS IS THE SOUL. Let this sutra penetrate deep in your heart. Your voyage to the
whole world is meaningless if you remained unaware of your own self. If you earned knowledge of
all the rest but remained ignorant of yourself, even the entire sum of that knowledge will equal to
nothing.
You may have seen the whole universe, scanned the moons and the stars, but if you have failed to
see yourself you remain a stranger among all. Because he alone can claim to have eyes who has
seen himself; he alone can claim to have attained knowledge who has known himself. He alone
is purified who has cleansed himself in the self-luminous consciousness. Consciousness alone is
holy, purifying. Except consciousness, there is no other holy place for pilgrimage.
The Great Path 9 Osho