THE ARCANE ARCHIVE
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Subject: Book of Secrets

from text by Osho (Bhagwan Sri Rasneesh)

	Devi asks:
	Oh Shiva, what is your reality?
	What is this wonder-filled universe?
	What constitutes see?
	Who centers the universal wheel?
	What is this life beyond form pervading forms?
	How may we enter it fully, above space and time, 
		names and descriptions?
	Let my doubts be cleared!

	...Philosophy is concerned with the mind.  Your 
	head is enough.  Your totality is not required.  
	Tantra needs you in your totality.  It is a 
	deeper challenge.  You will have to be in it 
	whole and sole.  It is not fragmentary.  A 
	different approach, a different attitude, a 
	different mind to receive it is required.  
	Because of this, Devi is asking 'apparently' 
	philosophical questions.  Tantra starts with 
	Devi's questions.  All the questions can be 
	tackled philosophically.

	Really, any question can be tackled in two ways: 
	philosophically or totally, intellectually or 
	existentially.  For example, if someone asks, 
	'What is love?' you can tackle it intellectually, 
	you can discuss, you can propose theories, you 
	can argue for a particular hypothesis.   You can 
	create a system, a doctrine - and you may not 
	have known love at all.

	To create a doctrine experience is not needed.  
	Really, on the contrary, the less you know the 
	better because then you can propose a system 
	unhesitatingly.  Only a blind man can easily 
	define what light is.  When you do not know you 
	are bold.  Ignorance is always bold; knowledge 
	hesitates.  And the more you know, the more you 
	feel that the ground underneath is dissolving.  
	The more you know, the more you feel how 
	ignorant you are.  And those who are really wise, 
	they become ignorant.  They become as simple as 
	children or as simple as idiots.

	The less you know, the better.  To be 
	philosophical, to be dogmatic, to be doctrinaire 
	-- this is easy.  To tackle a problem 
	intellectually is very easy.  But to tackle a 
	problem existentially - not just to think about 
	it, but to live it through, to go through it, 
	to allow yourself to be transformed through it 
	-- is difficult.  That is, to know love one will 
	have to be in love.  That is dangerous because 
	you will not remain the same.  The experience 
	is going to change you.  The moment you enter 
	love, you enter a different person.  And when 
	you come out you will not be able to recognize 
	your face.  It will not belong to you.  A 
	discontinuity will have happened.  Now there is 
	a gap.  The old man is dead and the new man has 
	come.  That is what is known as rebirth -- being 
	twice-born."
	_______________________________________________
	_The Book of Secrets_, Baghwan Sree Rajneesh, 
	 Rajneesh Foundation, 1974; pgs. 4-5.
	----------------------------------------------

and

	Devi asks, 'What is your reality, my Lord?'  
	He is not going to answer it.  On the contrary, 
	he will give a technique.  And if Devi goes 
	through this technique, she will know.  So the 
	answer is round-about; it is not direct.  He 
	is not going to answer 'who am I'.  He will 
	give a technique.  Do it and you will know.

	For tantra, doing is knowing, and there is no 
	other knowing.  Unless you do something, unless 
	you change, unless you have a different 
	perspective to look at, to look with, unless 
	you move in an altogether different dimension 
	than the intellect, there is no answer.  Answers 
	can be given: they are all lies.  All 
	philosophies are lies.  You ask a question and 
	the philosophy gives you an answer.  It satisfies 
	you or it doesn't satisfy you.  If it satisfies 
	you, you become a convert to the philosophy, but 
	you remain the same.  If it doesn't satisfy you, 
	you go on searching for some other philosophy to 
	be converted to.  But you remain the same; you 
	are not touched at all; you are not changed.

	So whether you are a Hindu or a [Muslim] or a 
	Christian or a Jain, it makes no difference.  
	The real person behind the facade of a Hindu or 
	a [Muslim] or a Christian is the same.  Only 
	words differ, or clothes.  The man who is going 
	to the church or to the temple or to the mosque 
	is the same man.  Only faces differ, and they 
	are faces which are false: they are masks.  
	Behind the masks you will find the same man, the 
	same anger, the same aggression, the same 
	violence, the same greed, the same lust -- 
	everything the same.  Is [Muslim] sexuality 
	different from Hindu sexuality?  Is Christian 
	violence different from Hindu violence?  It is 
	the same!  The reality remains the same; only 
	clothes differ.

	Tantra is not concerned with your clothes: 
	tantra is concerned with you.  If you ask a 
	question it shows where you are.  It shows also 
	that wherever you are you cannot see: that is 
	why the question.  A blind man asks, 'What is 
	light?'  Philosophy will start answering what 
	is light.  Tantra will know only this -- that 
	if a man is asking 'What is light?' it shows 
	only that he is blind.  Tantra will start 
	operating on the man, changing the man, so 
	that he can see.  Tantra will not say what is 
	light.  Tantra will tell how to attain insight, 
	how to attain seeing, how to attain vision.  
	When the vision is there, the answer will be 
	there.  Tantra will not give you the answer; 
	tantra will give you the technique how to 
	attain the answer."
	___________________________
	Ibid., pp. 5-6.
	-----------------------

namaste
nagasiva@luckymojo.com