Discourses Discourses In May 1974, Osho gives a series of question and answer discourses in English, which explain his way, the master-disciple relationship, and the development of his work in Poona. The discourses are published under the title My Way: The Way of the White Clouds, and attract many seekers from the West. This very morning there were white clouds in the sky. Now they are there no more. Where have they gone? From where do they come? How do they evolve, and how do they dissolve again? A white cloud is a mystery, the coming, the going, the very being of it. That's the first reason why I call my way The Way of the White Clouds. But there are many reasons, and it is good to ponder, to meditate upon them. A white cloud exists without any roots. It is an unrooted phenomenon, grounded nowhere or grounded in the nowhere. But still it exists. The whole of existence is like a white cloud: without any roots, without any causality, without any ultimate cause, it exists. It exists as a mystery. A white cloud really has no way of its own. It drifts. It has nowhere to reach, no destination, no destiny to be fulfilled, no end. You cannot frustrate a white cloud because wherever it reaches is the goal. If you have a goal you are bound to get frustrated. The more goal-oriented a mind is, the more anguish, anxiety and frustration there will be, because once you have a goal you are moving with a fixed destination. And the whole exists without any destiny. The whole is not moving anywhere; there is no goal to it, no purpose. And once you have a purpose, you are against the whole--remember this--then you will get frustrated. You cannot win against the whole. Your existence is so tiny--you cannot fight, you cannot conquer. It is impossible to conceive how an individual unit can conquer the whole. And if the whole is purposeless and you are with purpose you are going to be defeated. A white cloud drifts wherever the wind leads--it doesn't resist, it doesn't fight. A white cloud is not a conqueror, and still it hovers over everything. You cannot conquer it, you cannot defeat it. It has no mind to conquer--that's why you cannot defeat it. Once you are fixed to a goal, purpose, destiny, meaning, once you have got that madness of reaching somewhere, then problems will arise. And you will be defeated, that is certain. Your defeat is in the very nature of existence itself. A white cloud has nowhere to go. It moves, it moves everywhere. All dimensions belong to it, all directions belong to it. Nothing is rejected. Everything is, exists, in a total acceptability. Hence I call my way The Way of the White Clouds. The white clouds have no way of their own--they drift. A way means reaching somewhere. The White Clouds' Way means a pathless path, a wayless way. Moving, but not with a fixed mind--moving without a mind. This has to be understood, because purpose is synonymous with mind. That's why you cannot conceive how to live without purpose, because the mind cannot exist without purpose. clouds01 So I am the white cloud, and the whole effort is to make you also white clouds drifting in the sky. Nowhere to go, coming from nowhere, just being there this very moment--perfect. I don't teach you any ideals, I don't teach you any oughts. I don't say to you be this, become that. My whole teaching is simply this: Whatsoever you are, accept it so totally that nothing is left to be achieved, and you will become a white cloud. clouds01 You are asking: You have talked to us about total surrender to the master, but often our minds come up with reasons for not following the instructions literally. We say things like: The master can't know that the situation has changed; or, the master doesn't realize what the practical conditions are in the West. Should we follow everything the master says to the letter, or are there times when we should use our own discretion? You should follow either absolutely, or not at all. No compromise should be made, because anything half-hearted is not only useless but harmful. Anything half-hearted divides you--that is the harm. You should remain an undivided unity. So either surrender totally...then there is no need to think on your part; follow blindly. I emphasize the word blindly--as if you have no eyes; somebody who has eyes is leading you. Then you will remain an undivided unity; and undivided, integrated, you will grow. Or, if you feel this is impossible and cannot be done, don't follow at all. Completely follow yourself. Then too you will remain undivided. To remain undivided is the end, the aim. Both will do, the ultimate result will be the same. If you can be alone, without a master, if you can follow your own consciousness, wheresoever it leads, it is the same, the result will be the same. So it depends on you. But the mind always says: Do both. The mind says: Follow the master, but think about it. Follow only those things which you think right. Then where is the following? Where is the surrender? If you are the judge, and you are to decide what to follow and what not to follow, then where is the surrender, where is the trust? Then it is better to follow your own consciousness. But don't deceive--at least there should be no deception. Otherwise, you go on following yourself and you think that you are following a master. If you are the deciding factor, if you have to choose, if you have to discard something, accept something, then you are following yourself. But you can create the impression around yourself and you can deceive yourself that you are following a master. Then nothing will come out of it. You will not grow, because through deception there can be no growth. And you will get more and more confused, because if you are to decide what is to be done and what is not to be done, if you have to choose from your master's guidance, you will create a chaos--because whenever a master guides you his guidance has an organic unity about it. Every instruction is related to another. It is a compact whole. You cannot discard something and follow something; you will become a ruin, a wreck. Even if a single thing is denied, then the whole has been disturbed. You don't know how things are interrelated. So this is my suggestion to you: Remain a unit, undivided. Decide. If you have to decide, then decide: I will follow myself. Then don't surrender, there is no need either!... You can take my help if you surrender; you can take my help if you don't surrender, but you have to be clear about it. If you choose the path of surrender, then you have to follow me totally. If you choose that you are not going to surrender, then decide it. I can be a friend on the path, there is no need to make me a master. I can be just a friend on the path--or not even a friend. You are searching and you meet somebody absolutely unknown, a stranger, and you ask him: Where is the river? Which path leads to the river? When he has spoken you thank him and you move. I can be just a stranger. No need even to be a friend, because with a friend also you get involved. You can take my help--my help is unconditional. I don't say: Do this, then I will help you. I don't say: Surrender, only then will I help you. But this much I must say: Do whatsoever you like, but do it totally. If you are total, the transformation is closer. If you are divided, it is almost impossible. clouds12 Osho then gives a series of discourses in Hindi: Nahim Ram Bin Thaon (English: Nowhere to go but in). He explains how a master can help, not by teaching but by awakening, for which meditation is the preparation. A few things will have to be understood. The first is that to attain buddhahood is very difficult. To be awakened is almost to attain the impossible. Total awakening is a phenomenon that does not and cannot happen every day, because there is a deep attraction to sleep and there is comfort in sleep.... Now and then, maybe once in a thousand years, someone awakens. And whenever a single individual awakens, that door which is usually closed opens, even for those who are still asleep. Here we are so many people: suppose we are all asleep, then who will awaken us? If even one of us wakes up, the door opens up for the awakening of us all, because the one who is awake can awaken the sleeping ones, he can shake them to wake up.... I am taking you into all these experiments with meditation so that it becomes possible for you to recognize the buddha when the meeting happens; so that you do not turn your back on the door when it opens; so that you won't miss even if the door opens only for a single moment. Meditation will help you to recognize the master. Now this is a puzzle, because normally we approach the master in order to learn meditation. But I am telling you, without meditation you will never be able to recognize the master. Where will you look? Only meditation will make you capable of seeing the master. If you try to recognize the master through your thinking, you will miss.... Don't interpret, simply look at the facts. Don't be lazy. It is already late enough; wake up! It is morning! But for those who are asleep the night continues. Only those who are awake can see that the morning has come. And whatsoever I am saying to you, my emphasis is not on what I am saying, it is rather on shaking you, stirring you so that your sleep is broken. So many times I have to use what psychologists call shock treatment.... When someone has gone into extreme insanity, only the administration of electric shocks brings him back into sanity. You too need strong electric shocks. Hence, many times I say things that give you a jolt, a shock. And this process that I have been calling meditation is exactly electric shock treatment. It will create so many tremors in you that you will become an earthquake--and not until you are an earthquake will you break out of your sleep.... All meditation techniques are techniques to shake you, to jolt you awake. And I am always waiting for that moment when your layer will be so thin that just the merest indication will shatter it. And if you are able to open your eyes and look even once, the matter is over. My speaking to you is nothing but persuading you, getting you to agree to a journey which is utterly unfamiliar to you, to a journey where you have no idea of the destination; where it is possible you may get lost, or it is also possible you may reach the destination. I am taking you in search of such a treasure which you have no idea of, and you will have to travel leaving that behind which you call treasure; hence your attachment is understandable. Every now and then you turn around and look back--it is natural. That you want to take along with you very carefully even that which is worthless is natural. Your sleep is natural, my shaking you is natural. nowher15 You ask me: What is Your function here as a master? It is a difficult question, because I have to do so many things--without doing them, that is the most difficult part of it! I never leave my room, but I have to do many things, conceivable, inconceivable. But the basic function of the master is to force people out of their unconsciousness. It is a thankless job, because you have to hit them hard--their ideas, their notions, their middle-class, bourgeois philosophies. All that they have thought is great, all that they have thought is true, you have to go on telling them that it is all nonsense, that it is just bullshit! And of course they feel hurt.... Allow a single insight of a buddha in you and you will never be the same. That's my function here as a master: to give you something which will not fit with you but which will be so tremendously significant for you that you will be ready to change for it, that you will be ready to risk everything for it.  dh0702 Next Return to Menu