I went for a talk to the Rajneesh’s ashram in Pune, India around 1980. It was a long time ago. I did not understand anything he said and sat there crossed legged for about 2 hours hoping that I could get up and go. But they had told us at the start of the talk that we could not leave while the talk was on. All his devotees wore yellow robes. I remember this lady from Africa there, probably African American, but I don’t remember any of the Indian faces or the rest of the European faces there. I remember Rajneesh came in his Rolls Royce. It was white in colour. But he had a few of them in his garage I was told – all gifts, mostly from rich Americans. Also this I remember: All devotees and me had to go through a metal detector, before taking our seats on the floor. The kind of detector that you find at airports. The reason for this was that someone had once thrown a knife at him. Vaguely I think his talk was on love: but not sure of the rest – most of it was like water off a ducks back, to me, then. But I remember his voice: softly softly, spoken clearly – like he saw everything he said. He was surely sure of what he was talking about. Once Jiddu Krishnamurti was asked: who interprets best what he says and his reply was Rajneesh. But I think he said it in jest. From what you are about to read: you can see how he says it like he sees it: very surely clearly. About a couple of years ago I did go back to the Ashram and had a meal at the German bakery outside the Ashram. You might not find the bakery there now as it got bombed. The Ashram had all changed and people are business like and Ashram Plc. Not like before: if you came you got to get in and listen and also to some of his jokes. When i was there about 30 years ago I remember the 2 jokes he said like it was said yesterday. Remember he spoke softly softly (and this is a true story):
Joke no: 1 – Jesus arrived at a hotel reception threw some nails onto the reception desk and said , ‘put me up’.
Joke no: 2 – 2 Italian men sitting in front of an Italian cafe: one was a young male and the other an elderly man. It was a bright sunny day and lots of people were out and about walking past them.
Elderly man asked the young man: Do you like fat women?
and the younger man said: No.
Elderly man: Do you like women with big breasts?
Young man said: No.
Elderly man: Then why you fucking my wife?
I don’t usually swear but i am saying it as it was said. I did not make up the swear words.
In this article Rajneesh talks of breathing and concentrating on breathing and if you concentrate on breathing then your thinking stops: both he says cannot exists together at the same time. Then you progress to concentrating on thinking itself – and thinking stops. Both being aware of thinking and thinking itself cannot exists together at the same time. Then you watch your feeling and feeling……
He died in 1990.
Art can be made from different spaces in your mind.
Osho – Just go on watching your Breathing
Osho – People go on doing things almost in a sleep. Just become a little more alert. Do whatsoever you are doing, but bring the quality of consciousness to your actions — there is no other method. And you can bring that quality to small things and that is helpful. Sitting, just watch your breathing. The breath goes in, watch; the breath goes out, watch. Just go on watching your breathing. And it is of great help because if you watch your breathing, thinking stops.
This is something to be understood. Either you can think or you can watch your breathing. You can’t do both together. Breathing and thinking are such processes that only one can exist in you — in awareness. In unawareness, both can continue: you can go on breathing and you can go on thinking.
But if you become aware, either you can think or you can breathe; and when you breathe with awareness, thinking disappears. Your whole consciousness becomes focused on breathing. And breathing is such a simple process: you need not do it, it is already happening. You can just bring your consciousness to it.
Buddha became enlightened through this simple method. He calls it vipassana, insight. Breathing brings great insight and when you are aware of breathing, the whole thought process simply comes to a stop — and great stillness arises. After watching your breathing, it will be easy to watch your thinking directly, because breathing is a little gross.
Thinking is more subtle. Thoughts have no weight, they are weightless; they can’t be measured, they are immeasurable. That’s why the materialists cannot accept them. Matter means measure — that which can be measured is matter. So thought is not matter because it cannot be measured. It is, and yet it cannot be measured; hence it is an epiphenomenon.
The materialist says, “It is only a by-product, a side effect, a shadow phenomenon” — just as you walk in the sun, a shadow follows you. But the shadow is nothing. You walk in life and thinking arises, but it is only a shadow. If you watch this shadow, this epiphenomenon, these thoughts and the processes of thought… it is going to be a more subtle phenomenon because it is not as gross as breathing.
But first, learn the process of awareness through breathing and then move to thinking. And you will be surprised: the more you watch your thinking… again, either you can watch or you can think. Both cannot be done simultaneously. If you watch, thinking disappears.
If thinking appears, watching disappears. When you have become alert enough to watch your thoughts and let them disappear through watching, then move to feeling — which is even more subtle. And these are the three steps of vipassana. First breathing, second thinking, third feeling. And when all these three have disappeared, what is left is your being. To know it is to know all. To conquer it is to conquer all.
Source: from Osho Book “Dhammapada Vol 6”
And if you want to know about how thinking is heard in your breathing please read the next article on “speak thinking”.