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Question to Osho: What does it mean to be a seeker on the spiritual path?
   
       It means basically two things:First, that your life, as you know it externally, is meaningless- that life, as we know it, does not bring any fulfillment. In the moment of that recognition , the search begins. This is the negative part, but out of this negativity the positive can come into existence. Spiritual seeking means at first a negative feeling, a feeling that life, as it is, is meaningless.The whole story end simply with death. Earth unto earth, dust unto dust. And in the end you have nothing in your hands. You go through so much misery, through such a hell in life - and in the end you have not gained anything.
     
       That is the negative part on the search, and life helps you to come to this point. This negativity, this frustration, this pain, ist the part that the world takes care of. Once you have looked really deeply at this fact,this meaningless of life, just as it is, you normally begin to seek, because you cannot be contented with such a life. This meaninglessness creates a deep gap between you and everything that life consists of. An unbridgeable gap is created, and becomes bigger and bigger, you are no more anchored.
      
      This is the negative part of the search, and life helps you to arrive at this point. This negativity, this frustration, this suffering, is the part that life cares care of. Once you have looked really deeply at this fact, this meaninglessness of life, just as it is, you ordinarily begin to search, because you cannot be satisfied with a meaningless life.This meaninglessness creates an abyssimal gap between you and everything that life consits of. An unbridgeable distance arises and becomes bigger and bigger, you are no more rooted.
       
        Then begins the search for meaning , for something that could give you blissfulness.That is the other part of the search- the positive part.Spiritual seeking means to look at reality direcly, and not to live in illusions.Our whole life is only our projection, our illusion.We are not concerned to experience that which is,but to accomplish that which we desire. We could use the word "desire" as a symbol for our so-called life. It is an illusion. We are not in search for that which is, we are in search for the fulfillment of our dreams.

     And so we go on desiring,but life disappoints us again and again, because it it as it is.It cannot be the way we desire it .We can only become disappointed.Not that reality is against us -we don´t adjust to reality! We are only interested in our dreams. But all dreams will someday be destroyed. As long as we dream, everything is ok, but if a dream is being fulfilled, the whole thing becomes absurd and disillusioned.

      Spiritual seeking means to understand this negative part: that desiring ist the root cause of all disappointments; to desire means to create a hell on your own accord. To desire is to be worldly. Being worldly means to desire and to desire continuously, and never realizing that every desire leads to frustration and nothing else. Once you have realized this, you stop desiring, or you have only one desire: to realize who you are. You say: I am not here to project my ideas unto reality, but to recognize that which is. Not that I should be like this or that, or reality should be like this or that- I want only to realize the naked reality, however it may be. I don´t want to imagine anything. "I" cannot interfere. I want to meet reality just as it is.

      Spiritual search in its positive part means to encounter reality as it is, without any desire. When there is no desire left, the mechanism of projection stops functioning.Then you see that which is.This existence,that which is, gives us everything, once you know it. Desires promise everything but don´t deliver. Our desires always promise blissfulness and happyness, but fulfillment never happens, and every new desire only ends in another new desire. Out of every desire arise hundred new and bigger desires, which of course bring bigger frustrations in the end. A man with a desireless consciousness is on the spiritual search.
      A spiritual seeker is someone who has become fully aware of the stupidity of all desires, and who is ready to experience that which is.Once you are ready for this, reality is always very close- just around the next corner. But you are never here. You are in the future with your desires, and reality is always in the present- here and now! But you are never in the present. You are always in the future, in your desires, in your dreams - asleep. Und reality is here and now. When you awaken from this sleep, when this dream is broken and you awaken into reality, which is here and now, in this presence you are reborn.Then you find fulfillment and exctasy and everything that you have always desired.

       Spiritual seeking means to be here and now, and that is only possible when you have no desires. The desiring mind always goes back and forth, like a pendulum. It either moves into the past, into memory,or into the future, into desires and dreams; but it is never here and now. It continuously misses exactly the moment of here and now. It always moves between both the extremes: the past or the future.And in this swinging back and forth between past and future we miss reality. Reality is here and now. It has never passed and is never in the future. It is always present. Now ist the only moment.Now is the tiny moment. Now is the only time. The now never passes away. It is eternal. It is always here- but we are not here.

        To be a spiritual seeker means therefore to be here. Call it meditation or yoga or prayer, the label does not matter; mind should not be present, but mind exists only by thinking about the past or the future. Otherwise mind cannot exist. Yesterday I talked to somebody.I told him: "You cannot think in the present. The moment you are thinking the moment has already become past." So mind cannot be in the present.It exists only in memories of the past or in plans for the future. It is never in contact with the present. That is impossible. When there is no thinking happening,there is no mind.This state is meditation.Then you are here and now.Then you explode into reality.

       The spiritual search is no search for moksha, for salvation, for death. This is again a desire. A greed, even bigger than the greed for money, for power, for prestige . The desire for salvation is even a bigger greed; because it moves even beyond death. And the spiritual search is no search for god, because again this is just a desire. When you look for god, the mind has again become greedy . You look for god for a certain purpose.No matter how deep and unconscious this process is, you look for god to get something. By this I don´t want to say that there is no god once the spiritual search has come to its ultimate fulfillment. I am not saying that there is no salvation, when you have reached the state of meditation and consciousness is free of thoughts.The salvation is there- you are liberated. But it is not a result of your desiring mind. The salvation is simply a result of knowing what reality is. God is there- but not because of your desires. God is reality. And when you know reality, you know it is divine. Reality is divine.
        But the search is not for god or salvation or blissfulness, because whenever there are desires again you project your thoughts into the future. Spiritual seeking means not to promise yourself anything from the future; it means to remain in the present, living in the present, and the readyness to accept whatever happens here and now. The divine explodes in your interiority- freedom comes, but they are not things that you posess, they are natural consequences; shadows of recognizing reality.

     So first we have to recognize, that the course of life, as it is is, is frustrating. You cannot have anymore illusions, otherwise you cling to it. Taste every experience in life totally. Don´t run away. Experience everything so totally that you experience the disappointment that it brings. Don´t escape, don´t turn away, only then this part of the search will be complete, and you can take the jump into the here and now. When you have recognized that the future is the real root of all this nonsense that human mind puts into the world, you have taken the deciding step. You have progressed, now you are also able to recognize that which is.

      Life is a great help in the first, the negative part. Therefore move into every experience, into every desire, experience it! Don´t renounce before you are ripe for it. That´s what is happening: you are not yet really disappointed by life, but already greedy for religious promises. You have not experienced life a s divine, but already drunk from divine ideas , and then the second part becomes very difficult, because you have not passed through the first. Therefore go through the first part, then the second part becomes very easy.

       The second part is only difficult if the first has not been lived totally. Then you ask: " How to meditate?" Then you say:" The mind goes on and on, the stream of thoughts never stops. I cannot stop thinking. How can I make the stream of my thoughts silent?" The desires are still there, and every desire creates more thoughts. The first part has not been fulfilled.

       A mature spiritual seeker is a man who has gone through life without any fear and knows every nook and corner.He knows life so well that nothing remains left behind unknown. Then meditation is easy, because there is nobody who has to think any thoughts, there is nobody who could have any desires. You simply have to shout "hu!" and you are in the present. Every simple means brings you to a full stop. For example the staff of a zen master in front of your nose...the zen master raises the staff- and you are in the present. Such simple means are enough, if the first part has been fulfilled.

        The zenmaster Rinzai once spoke in a temple. He had already started speaking when someobody disturbed him. "What´s the matter?" Rinzai asked, and interrupted his talk. The man stood up and said and asked:"Is there a soul?" Rinzai took his staff into his hands as a threat, and made his way through the crowd. The man began trembling; he had not expected such an answer. Rinzai stood before him, put both hands around his throat and pressed tightly. The eyes of the man bulged, but Rinzai kept pressing more and more , and asked: "Who are you?Close your eyes!" The man closed his eyes, and Rinzai kept asking:"Who are you?" After a while the man opened his eyes, started laughing, bowed down to Rinzai and said:" ou have answered my question".

      Such a simple means! But the man was ready. Rinzai was asked if he did the same with everybody who asked. Rinzai said:"This man was ready.He did not ask to just ask something.He was ready. The first part of his search was complete. He really asked. This question,`Is there a soul?´ was a question of life and death to him.he was totally finished with life.This life has brought him to the edge of death, and now he asked:' Is there life?' That´s why none of my answers would not have made any sense.I have only helped him to be fixed in the present moment." "Of course you can be neither in the past nor the future when somebody strangles you, almost kills you. You can only be here and now, it is too dangerous to miss this moment. To such a being I only say :" Go inside and find out who you are!", and he will be changed and transformed . He goes into samadhi. He remains fixed in the moment.

        If one can be in the present just for a moment, one has experienced it; the meeting has happened.Now you cannot lose track anymore. Spiritual seeking means: Knowing that which is. What is all this? Not all that, but this. What is all this - this I which speaks, this you which listens- this whole.What is all this? Be still and go deeply into that which is; open yourself, and let it open itself....than a meeting happens.This meeting is the goal of the search.You have been longing for this meeting, this union, all the time. That´s why we have called it yoga.Yoga means meeting. The word yoga means meeting, unity, coming together again, becoming again one.

      But the so-called spiritual people don´t look for real spirituality. They only project their desires unto another dimension. And no desire can be projected unto the true spiritual dimension, because this dimension is available only to those who are desireless.Those who desire only create new illusions and dreams. First of all understand that desiring is a race without ever arriving anywhere. Then be still- and see that which is. All is open, only we are locked into our desiring mind.
     
                                      -Osho-