What is truth and how to recognize it? Is it necessary to be a sannyasin or a meditator to find it? Osho answers the question of one of his disciples.
“Please, explain the difference between a sannyasin and one who is not, yet lives with a deep commitment to truth.
Do you know what truth is? Otherwise, how can there be a commitment? Commitment is possible only if you know. The sannyasin is one who knows that he knows not, the sannyasin is one whose commitment is not to truth but to the inquiry into truth. And the inquiry is possible only with someone who knows, who has arrived. The sannyasin is one who is committed to the person, or to the no-person, around whom he feels the vibe of truth, the vibe of authenticity.
Lynne Stevens, your commitment to truth is just an idea. Your truth is just a word, a mind trip. If you want to make it a real pilgrimage you will have to be a disciple — and to be a disciple is to be a sannyasin.
To be a disciple means to be ready to learn, ready to go into the unknown with someone who has been in it. Alone, very rarely one has attained to truth. Not that it has not happened — alone, also, it has happened, but very rarely, just an exception; otherwise one has to learn in communion with a master.
Then too, it does not happen easily. It is an arduous journey. Dropping the clinging to the known is not easy. That is our whole investment, that is our whole identity. Dropping the clinging to the known is dropping the ego, is committing a kind of spiritual suicide; alone, you will not be able to do it. Unless you see somebody who has committed that suicide and still is — in fact for the first time is…. You will have to look into those eyes which have seen truth, and a glimpse of the truth will be caught through those eyes. You will have to hold hands with someone who has known, receive the warmth and the love… and the unknown will start flowing into you.
The need for a Master
That’s what it means to be with a master, to be a disciple. If you are really committed to truth you are bound to become a sannyasin. If your commitment to truth is an inquiry then you will have to learn the ways of learning. And the first thing to learn is to surrender, to trust, to love.
The sannyasin is one who has fallen in love with a person, or a no-person, where he feels a gut feeling: “Yes, it has happened here.” To be with someone who has known is contagious — and truth is not taught, it is caught.
Your truth is nothing but an idea in your mind — maybe a philosophical inquiry, but a philosophical inquiry is not going to help. It has to become existential, you have to give proofs in your life that you are really committed. Otherwise, you can go on playing the game of words, beautiful games of theories, systems of thought — and there are thousands. You can also make a private system of thought of your own, and you will think this is truth.
Truth is not of your making, truth has nothing to do with your mind. Truth happens, and it happens only when you have become a no-mind. But how are you going to become a no-mind? On your own you will remain the mind. You may think about the no-mind, you may philosophize about the no-mind, you may read the scriptures about no-mind, but you will remain a mind. On your own, seeking and searching, your ego will feel very good — but that is the barrier. It is like pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps.
If somewhere you find help is available, don’t miss it — because the opportunity is rare, the buddhafield is rare. Only once in a while, somewhere, a buddha arises, a bodhichitta happens. Then don’t miss the opportunity. If your commitment is really towards truth, you cannot avoid becoming a sannyasin. It is inevitable, because no-mind is learned only by sitting by the side of a no-mind.
If you sit by my side, slowly slowly your mind will start dispersing like the morning mist. Slowly slowly a silence will start penetrating you — not of your doing, but coming on its own. A stillness will pervade you.
And the moment you are utterly still, not even a thought moving inside you, that is the moment of illumination. For the first time you have a glimpse of truth — not the idea of truth, but truth itself.” Osho
