While speaking on Ramana Maharshi, Osho said, “Ramana Maharshi’s whole system of meditation was based on only this, He used to say, “There is only one form of meditation, and that is to ask yourself, ‘Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?’’’ He would say, “Put all the energy that you possess, put your whole life’s energy at stake in asking just this one question, ‘Who am I?’ Ask this question as if your life depended on it. Let each and every cell of your body cry out for this answer. And go on asking this question, but don’t give any answers, because all the answers you give will be false. Let the answer come by itself, don’t give the answer. You are always in such a hurry to supply the answer, and all your answers born out of your hurry are false – because such answers are already present in your head even before the question has been asked.” OSHO – The Voice of Silence, Ch #16.
When a lady asked Osho, “Can you say who you are?’’ Osho replied, ”I am an Invitation. For all those who are seeking, searching, and have a deep longing in their heart, to find their home. I am an answer to the question that everybody is, but cannot formulate. A question that is more a quest, than a question. More a thirst, than a verbal, mental inquiry. A thirst that one feels, in every cell and fiber of his being, but has no way to bring it to the words and ask it.”
“I am an answer to that question which you cannot ask, and you cannot expect that it could be answered. when I say I am the answer, I don’t mean that I can give you the answer. Yes, if you are ready, you can take it. I am just like a well, ready for use, to throw your bucket and draw the water for yourself. I have it but it cannot reach to you, without your efforts. Only you can reach to me.”
He continued by saying, “It is a strange invitation. It will take you on a long pilgrimage, and it will end only where you already are. you have to move many steps, and on many paths, just to come to yourself because you have gone far away from yourself. you have completely forgotten the way back. I am a reminder, a remembrance of the lost home. As a person I do not exist as a person, I only appear. I exist as a presence.”
“The day I came to know myself, the person has disappeared, there is only your presence, a very living presence that can quench your thirst, that can fulfill your longing. hence, in one word I can say, I am an invitation. Just of course for those, who Have a deep longing in their heart, that they are missing themselves, a deep urge, that unless they find themselves, everything else is meaningless.”
“Unless it is your a priority concern, your ultimate concern, that even if it is needed, you are even ready to lose everything for it, but you cannot drop it, there are thousands of desires but as far as longing is concerned there is only one and that is you come back home, to find your reality and in that very finding, you have found all that is of any value, blissfulness, truth, ecstasy.”
As Osho spoke further, he said, “Jesus used to say if you have eyes to see, see. If you have ears to hear, hear. Of course, he was not talking to the blind, and to the deaf. use talking to the people just like you, perhaps he was talking just to you because you are not new. you are as ancient as the whole existence. you have always been here. you may have come across many Masters, you may have come close to many Buddhas but you are too much engaged in your trivial, you are not aware of your longing.”
“I am an effort to provoke The dormant in you, to wake up the sleep. The fire is there but is burning very low because you have never taken care of it. My invitation is to make you aflame, And understand you know a life which is luminous and aflame, all your knowledge is just a deception. you are gathering to help you forget that the real knowledge is missing. but however great is your accumulation of the other, the objective, the world, it is not going to become a substitute for your self-knowing, with the self-knowing, suddenly all darkness disappears and, all separation from existence. I am an invitation to take a courageous jump into the ocean of life. Lose Yourself because that is the only way to find yourself.”
This excerpt was taken from one of Osho’s Discourses, A courageous jump into the ocean of life. You can find out more on Osho International’s youtube channel.