18 Jan . 15 Min Read . 8267
Question to Osho
Beloved Osho,
Last night I was reading “The book of Mirdad”. It was
so beautiful and so strong that I couldn’t stop reading for hours. Then
suddenly I felt that my Breath had changed, and I found myself on the edge of
crying, and I didn’t Know whether it was sadness, desperation, bliss, or all
three at the same Time.
I tried to find out by reading the words again, but I realized that my mind didn’t really understand them when I looked at them. How is it possible that words which the mind doesn’t understand can touch one so deeply?
Answer of Osho
There are millions of books in the world, but The Book
of Mirdad stands out far above any other book in existence.
It is unfortunate that very few people are acquainted
with The Book of Mirdad for the simple reason that it is not a religious
scripture. It is a parable, a fiction, but containing oceanic truth.
It is a small book, but the man who gave birth to this
book... and mind my words, I am not saying "the man who wrote this
book." Nobody wrote this book. I am saying the man who gave birth to this
book - he was an unknown, a nobody. And because he was not a novelist, he never
wrote again; just that single book contains his whole experience.
The name of the man was Mikhail Naimy.
It is an extraordinary book in the sense that you can
read it and miss it completely, because the meaning of the book is not in the
words of the book. The meaning of the book is running side by side in silence
between the words, between the lines, in the gaps.
If you are in a state of meditativeness - if you are
not only reading a fiction but you are encountering the whole religious
experience of a great human being, absorbing it; not intellectually
understanding but existentially drinking it - the words are there but they
become secondary. Something else becomes primary: the silence that those words
create, the music that those words create. The words affect your mind, and the
music goes directly to your heart.
And it is a book to be read by the heart, not by the
mind. It is a book not to be understood, but experienced. It is something
phenomenal.
Millions of people have tried to write books so that
they can express the inexpressible, but they have utterly failed. I know only
one book, The Book of Mirdad, which has not failed; and if you cannot get to
the very essence of it, it will be your failure, not his.
He has created a perfect device of words, parables,
situations. If you allow it, the book becomes alive and something starts
happening to your being. And naturally, because you have never come to such a
state, you are puzzled about what it is - sadness? blissfulness? There are
tears, but those tears can be either of sadness or they can be of immense joy.
You have come to a point where you have never been
before, so naturally you cannot categorize it. You cannot put a label on it according
to your old experiences. But the name does not mean anything. What matters is
that you have taken a step beyond yourself. You have never been in this space;
you have entered into the unknown, and it is so unknown that you don't have the
vocabulary even to give it a name.
Just see the point: It may look like sadness...
because for the first time in your life you will become aware that up to now
you have not been alive. Life has happened today.
And it brings a great sadness... you were alive - but
knowing this new experience, your whole life becomes so mundane, so
meaningless, that it is better to say that it was more death than life. And a
sadness arises that, "Why could I not reach this space before?" It is
so close - just a step beyond the boundaries of your old mind and the whole sky
with all its stars becomes available. You were confined in such a small prison
- and nobody was imprisoning you. You were the prisoner and you were the
imprisoned. You were the jailer and you were the jailed. Naturally... a
sadness, looking to the past.
But looking to the present... a great blissfulness, a
peace that passeth understanding, a silence that is not just the opposite of
sound... a silence which is absence of sound, not the opposite of sound. A
music without any instruments, a song without any words....
For the first time you start feeling that, "Up to
now I have been living in the head; and only this moment the doors of my heart
are open."
There is an old Chinese story. Because of the story a
proverb has come into existence - that when the musician becomes perfect, he
burns his instruments; they become not only useless, they become a nuisance
because they only create noise. Only between the noise are there a few moments
of music - why not have it all?
And when the archer becomes a perfect master, he drops
his bow and his arrows and forgets all about it. A strange proverb - because
ordinarily we think that when we become perfect our instruments will also
attain a perfection with us; their working will also become perfect.
...
A musician when he is perfect forgets his instruments;
now silence is his music.
The Book of Mirdad is one of the greatest devices that
have been created down the ages. Don't read it like any other book. Don't read
it like Shri Bhagavadgita or the Holy Bible. Read it as beautiful poetry, as
music spread on the pages. Read it as a message from a master of meditation.
The words are code words.
Don't look for their meaning in the dictionary.
Their meaning is when they strike something in your heart.
That's why you felt, reading Mirdad, that your
breathing changed. It has to be understood very carefully: your breathing
changes with each of your emotions. When you are angry, watch: you will have a
different kind of breathing, unrhythmic, chaotic. When you are in love, just
holding the hand of your beloved, your breathing will be different - peaceful,
silent, musical, harmonious. And these are small things; I am just giving you
examples to understand.
When you are sitting with the master, the breathing
becomes so harmonious that sometimes you may think it has stopped. There will
be moments when suddenly you become aware - "Has my breathing
stopped?" Because it will be so silent that even you cannot feel its
movement.
This happened to you reading Mirdad, that you felt
your breathing was changing. It was beautiful. And because your breathing
changed, that's why you came to a point where you were indecisive. Whether you
were sad or silent, blissful, ecstatic, you could not decide, because the thing
was so new and you had no category to put it in.
But I will tell you: You were sad, sad because you
have wasted your whole life - and this space was so close; you were just to
reach and it was going to be available to you. You were sad, just like a beggar
will be sad who comes to know that he is the emperor and there has been some
mistake; the beggar is sitting on the throne and the emperor is begging in the
streets. All those years of begging... a shadow, a sadness.
You also felt silence, because The Book of Mirdad has
been created by a man who knows the inner workings of human consciousness. He
was not a writer; hence, nobody ever bothered to give him a Nobel prize. He was
alive in this century, he was our contemporary. His book has not been
translated into many languages for the simple reason that the book is unique -
it is not a book, it is a device. And it is not meant to be read, it is meant
to create a certain atmosphere around you. If you are ready, available,
receptive, the atmosphere will be created and there will be great silence. And
silence is always blissful.
So you got very much confused: There was sadness
because of the past; there was silence because of the present - and silence is
always bringing flowers of blissfulness.
You thought there must be something in the words, so
you read those words again. But you could not find it; in those words there was
nothing, they were ordinary words. From where was this experience happening?
It was happening because you are on the path.
You are part of a mystery school.
You are a seeker.
It would not have happened to you if you were not on
the path. It happened to you because you were getting ready for this happening,
and The Book of Mirdad simply triggered what was already going to happen. It
would have happened even without The Book of Mirdad, perhaps a little later.
The man on the path may find in his life.... Listening
to music sometimes it happens. The musician may be an ordinary man; he may not
know anything about silence and blissfulness, but his music can trigger
something in you. It may be triggered by seeing a sunset; now the sunset is not
aware of you at all. It may be triggered by the perfume of a rose.
But remember one thing: Just because The Book of
Mirdad helped you in reaching a new space in yourself, don't tell others to
read it - because they will find it just ordinary fiction, beautiful. They may
even destroy your connection that has been created unknowingly; you were not
ready for this experience. So one thing: Don't tell others, "Read The Book
of Mirdad, it brings such beautiful experiences." It may not bring them
anything.
Secondly, because it has brought you a beautiful
experience this time, don't read it again and again in order to get it. Because
this time you were not expecting anything; next time you will be full of
expectations. You will be waiting and watching for when it happens - it will
not happen. Once in a while it is possible, but the basic condition to be
fulfilled is, no expectations.
And I say to you, because it happened with The Book of
Mirdad it can happen through many other avenues. You are ready, you just need a
little push. Be available to all those situations where that push is possible,
but without any expectation. Just to enjoy... a beautiful dance, beautiful
music, a beautiful painting; just sitting by the side of the sea and the music
of the waves, the continuous music, or looking at the moon - anything may help,
but don't expect.
The Book of Mirdad can be of immense help if you don't
expect, and it is a book worth reading thousands of times. You cannot
understand its oceanic meaning in one reading, because in each page, each turn,
each chapter, each line, there is a possibility - because the man who wrote
it....
I understand that man. He was one of the greatest men
of this century. He lived unknown to the world, but just this one book makes
him the greatest writer not only of this century but of all the centuries.
The Book of Mirdad needs to be in every house, it is
so precious.
And it has touched your heart.
Just don't start having expectations, and it will help
you on the way immensely.
And it has touched your heart.
The Osho Upanishad
Talks given from 16/08/86 pm to 02/10/86 pm