Letters to Osho

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The day that I arrived in Pune, Osho, then Bhagwan, told Sheela to ask me why it took me so long to come.
Then she gave me a golden pen with a diamond on it. I was stunned and felt a warm vibration taking me deep into a new way of desciplehood.
The master's welcoming was more then I could have asked for. With the pen I wrote :              
1
Inside  outside
In between and in the middle, 
All around and beyond.
Next day, Ma Vidya called me into the front office to tell me that I was supposed to go to the music group  instead  of doing any group therapy and that there was no need for Dynamic meditation. With the same pen I wrote :
2
This is a spark from eternal sacred fire
It consumes light and darkness alike
It is the new man swallowing stars and black holes....
It was the most sublime month for me. Coming from NYC desperate for the promised spiritual cure I found the ultimate doctor to operate my ego. I was then very inspired by the lovingness and kindness and the whole beautiful vibe that permeates the Ashram, and sent him more poems such as :
3
Go inside a zero
Come back out a fullness....
Go inside a fullness
Come back out empty, zero...
4
Fullness is an unknown quantity
It becomes known when is empty.
5
An arrogant person is always at loss, also the humble...
But a humble one can't ever be arrogant again... 

               

6
Like a grain of sand under water on a river bed...
This is how important we all are. 
We then went to the USA and I've lost the pen at the truckfarm. Some days later He sent me another pen.
A silver one this time, very beautiful.
I still have it. Then I felt that it was ok to continue sending him my nonsense poetry.
Ant then :

                   

7
Aloness is greatest, not loneliness
Don't be confused...
Only Alone one will ever find its eternity
Alone is different from lonely
Such a subtle coloring.
8
Wisdom comes from the most unusual places
Nowhere or Now/Here
9
Never doubt that a small group of meditators
Can change the world....
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.  
Then back to Pune.
And in Pune 2 the action was hectic. Bhagwan is back and meditation needs a home, a hall. Not any hallypolly room but The Buddha Hall. Actually the BUDDHA'S HALL, all of us included. And we put up an incredible new age tent with marble floor. BUDDHA'S HALL.  
One day Ma Anando came to tell that Bhagwan wants Nivedano to make a water fall surrounding his rooms. A nine meter high waterfall made of white marble. Great idea!!! 
The work making the fall became poetry and it is there now full of verses of gratitude, lovingness and immense communal work with all the blood, sweat and tears from the seekers.
One day it was necessary to put in words.
What was felt for the master. 
This was his answer to what was sent in.


The Rebellious Spirit
Chapter #4
Chapter title: The thread of understanding
BELOVED OSHO,
YOU ARE ALL THE RIVERS REACHING TO THE OCEAN, WHERE THE SKY SEEMS TO DISAPPEAR INTO THE EARTH -- THAT "THERE" WHICH IS HERE. AT DAWN I BATHE IN THE WARMTH OF YOUR COMPASSIONATE LOVE AND UNDERSTANDING, AND WHEN DUST SETTLES, ONE CAN SEE THE VAST FIRMAMENT REFLECTED IN YOUR EYES, WHERE THE DISTANT ECHOES OF UNFORGETTABLE MELODIES CAN BE HEARD IN THE SILENCE OF YOUR SONGS.
YOU ARE TRUTH, YOU ARE LOVE, YOU ARE BEAUTY. AND YET ALL OF THIS, FOR THE ONE WHO FINDS IT, IS SAID TO BE BUT NOTHINGNESS.
BELOVED MASTER, FORGIVE ME IF, IN THE ATTEMPT TO THANK EXISTENCE FOR ALL THESE BLESSINGS OF YOUR PRESENCE HERE, I FALL SHORT OF SOMETHING INTELLIGENT TO SAY AND SOUND LIKE A POET WITHOUT POETRY.
I JUST DON'T KNOW ANYMORE. IT IS ALL SO VAST THAT THIS HEART CAN ONLY REPEAT ON AND ON: THANK YOU.
BUDDHAM SHARANAM GACHCHHAMI,
SANGAM SHARANAM GACHCHHAMI,
DHAMMAM SHARANAM GACHCHHAMI.
Nivedano, don't feel that you fall short of something intelligent to say. All that is really intelligent, is impossible to say. And it is not just a coincidence that whatever you say sounds like poetry, although you are not a poet.
There are poets and there are poets. There are poets who compose poetry; they are composers. Their poetry is shallow. It is only a linguistic and grammatical game. They know the technique of how to create the fallacy of something being poetry. And there are poets who are not even aware of their poetry. They are not composers; but their hearts are so full of love and beauty and truth that whatever they say becomes poetry. It may have the form of prose; that does not matter.
You have to understand this: there are poems which have only the form of poetry, but they are really prose. And there are pieces of prose which have the form of prose, but are really poetry.
Poetry and prose are not a question of form; it is a question of content. Even silence can be poetry. Listen to this silence... this silence can defeat any Shakespeare, any Kalidas, any Milton. These birds are not composing poetry. Just the beautiful sun and the beautiful trees are making them explode into singing. They don't know the art of composing poetic pieces. Do you think peacocks go to a school to learn dancing -- kathak? -- or cuckoos go to a school of music? What can a school of music teach a cuckoo? A cuckoo is already cuckoo enough.
Whatever your heart is pouring is poetry: "You are all the rivers reaching to the ocean, where the sky seems to disappear into the earth, that "there" which is here. At dawn I bathe in the warmth of Your compassionate love and understanding, and when dust settles one can see the vast firmament reflected in Your eyes, where the distant echoes of unforgettable melodies can be heard in the silence of Your songs. You are truth, You are love, You are beauty. And yet all of this, for the one who finds it, is said to be but nothingness."
It is said to be but nothingness because anything less than nothing will not do justice to all the songs and the beauty and the truth that are born out of it. What is the womb of a woman, except nothingness? But out of that womb life arises. And where does life disappear after death? You burn the body. Life moves back into nothingness to rest.
"A little rest on the wind," says Almustafa to Almitra, "and another woman will bear me as a child."
Birth is from nothingness, and death takes you back into nothingness. Nothingness is a rest -- the ultimate rest. And all that is beautiful in the world, created by man, has come out of nothingness.
When Picasso was asked.... He was going to the beach with his canvas and colors and brushes, to paint. One of his girlfriends was with him, and she asked, "What you are going to paint today?" He said, "I don't know." The girl was certainly puzzled. She said, "Then who knows?" He said, "That too I don't know."
The girl said, "Are you going to paint or not?" He said, "Why unnecessarily torture me? I will wait on the beach. If the painting comes out of nothing and wants to be born, I will be a womb to it. I am ready to be a mother to it, but I am not a painter in the sense of one who has a certain idea in the mind and then brings that idea to the painting."
It happened once: a man purchased one of the paintings of Picasso for one million dollars. Of course he wanted to be sure that it was an authentic original, that it was not somebody else's painting, a fake painting -- and there are thousands of fake paintings in the world.
But the critic who was helping him to find the best painting in the museum told him, "Don't be worried, because at the time Picasso painted this painting, I was present with him. I am a friend of his. I was a guest in his house. And if you still don't believe me, you come with me to Picasso."
He took the man to Picasso. Picasso looked at the painting, and he said, "It is not original."
The critic could not believe it. He said, "What are you saying? You painted it in front of me."
Even Picasso's secretary said, "That critic is right. You have forgotten. It is your painting, your signature."
He said, "I have not forgotten anything. But this is not original, because I have painted the same painting before. That time it came from the beyond. I had no idea what I was painting -- only as the painting went on growing did I become aware of it. And that original painting is in a certain museum, you can go and see; you will not find any difference between the two.
"This second painting I had to paint because somebody was there who was insisting on buying a painting, and I had no painting. And you cannot provoke the beyond according to your desires; it comes to you on its own. Sometimes months pass and I cannot paint a single thing. And sometimes for months I am painting and painting; the sky goes on pouring like rain.
"So, because the man was rich and I was in need of money and he wanted a painting, I remembered this painting and I painted it. So you are right that I painted it. But listen to me: this is only a copy, it is not original. I will not count it as an original Picasso. The original Picasso always comes from the beyond -- Picasso is only a medium. In this painting Picasso was the technician, not the painter."
So all the beauty and truth and silence and unforgettable melodies that you hear... trust me, they are coming out of nothingness. I don't speak. I am just a hearer amongst you.
"Beloved master, forgive me if, in the attempt to thank existence for all these blessings of Your presence here, I fall short of something intelligent to say, and sound like a poet without poetry." Don't feel sorry -- feel blessed that you cannot say anything intelligent, intellectual. On the contrary, your heart comes in and creates poetry.
You know perfectly well you are not a poet by profession; but poetry is not the monopoly of the professionals. The greatest poetry is born not from the professionals, but from those amateur wanderers who don't know what they are doing.
The moment a person becomes an expert, professional, he does not look at the beyond. He simply goes on painting, or creating poetry, or music, or a sculpture through his own mind. It is man-made. And unless something is coming from beyond the man, from beyond the mind -- something that is transcendental -- it is not poetry.
Don't feel sorry; instead rejoice -- that you wanted to say something intelligent, but instead you are talking like a poet without knowing what poetry is. No poet knows what poetry is. Professors of poetry know what poetry is, but they never create a single poem. It is a very strange world, where experts are superficial and where amateurs touch the very depth of existence or the very height of the Himalayas.
"I just don't know anymore." That's great! Ignorance is a cousin-sister of innocence. There is not much difference: ignorance is asleep, innocence is awake. The moment you understand that you don't know anymore, you are coming very close to the innocent heart. Just a little more awareness and you will be awake.
"It is all so vast that this heart can only repeat on and on: Thank You." In fact, every heart in its every beat is doing the same to existence. You have not understood it, because you don't know the language of the heart. This is the beginning of understanding the language of the heart. Each beat is nothing but a 'thank you'.
One Zen master used to wake up every morning and call loudly, "Bokuju, are you still here?" -- that was his own name. And his disciples were very much ashamed: "If somebody hears, they will think you are mad. Why do you do it?"
He said, "In the night, when I go to sleep, I say, `Bokuju, one does not know whether tomorrow morning you will be able to see the sunrise again... the song of the birds, the vast sky, the dance of life.' So when I wake up, the first thing, I want to do is to make certain that Bokuju is still here." So he used to call, "Bokuju, are you still here?" -- and then he would say, "Yes, sir!" Then only would he get out of bed.
His disciples said, "This is absolutely insane." He said, "It may be, in your eyes, but not in my eyes -- because I am not Bokuju. Bokuju is the name of my body and my personality. After a deep sleep I want to know whether the body is still there or not; otherwise, who is going to get up? And when I hear `Yes, sir!' then I say, `That's perfectly good: one day more to live, one day more to sing, one day more to love, one day more to dance.'"
You are right. Because of the poverty of language, of the poverty of philosophy, of the poverty of religion, one cannot do anything better than what for thousands of years.... One does not know who said it first:
Buddham Sharanam Gachchhami -- I go to the feet of the awakened one.
Sangam Sharanam Gachchhami -- I go to the feet of the commune of the awakened one.
Dhammam Sharanam Gachchhami -- I go to the ultimate truth of the awakened one.
This is the only prayer possible, because this is nothing but thankfulness, gratitude.
Okay, Vimal?
Yes, Osho.
back to Nivedano ....