Realization of Truth

Realization of Truth, of the Supreme Soul, and of what we really are, is not a matter of intellectual deliberation or mental reflection. Only those of us are able to comprehend Truth who nurture their worthiness and receptivity by ceaseless practice. Inasmuch as our knowledge of things is restricted by the extent of our capacity to know, it is necessary to remember that the bounds of Truth are not limited to the extent of our knowledge. The frontiers of Truth are ever beyond our ken, because the more we know the more remains yet to be known. What we know need not necessarily be Truth since Truth is much too large for our capacity to comprehend which is neither complete nor perfect. One who identifies the limits of one's knowledge with those of Truth stops thereat, and does not go further. Even in the case of worldly objects we find our knowledge restricted by our sense-organs. To a person bereft of eyesight there is, indeed, no object like light in his world of experience. A true conception of light cannot find a place in the community that consists entirely of blind persons. Nor can darkness be truly comprehended by them, because an experience of light is essential to a thorough understanding of darkness. If we are devoid of the auditory faculty, sound becomes non-existent for us. Virtually, the existence of only those things is revealed to us which are intelligible to our senses. Our world of experience co-extends with our perceptive ability. We cannot, however, say that the real world is only that much. The frontiers of the world we experience and the real world are not identical. Our world is thus restricted by us ourselves. Surely, there are many worlds within one world. There are as many worlds as there are living organisms. Examining still more minutely, we can say that there are as many worlds as there are individuals constituting the different species. Thus in the universe the individual worlds are numberless, because those who know, perceive, and experience are likewise numberless. Hence, the universe is subdivided into as many imaginary pieces as there are individual cogs in the wheel. Far behind men are quite a large number of animals whose sensory faculty is far inferior to that of man. We know that many of them do not possess the faculty of seeing or hearing. Some are denied the gustatory faculty and some the olfactory. Those beings do not, really, have the experience of light, sound, taste or smell. The world of experience of man extends as far as his sense-organs allow it to do, and it will be sheer ignorance if the real world were to be restricted by us to what is projected by our limited knowledge. Were we blessed with more sense-organs, we might possibly have extended our world of experience still further. Scientific appliances have enabled us to do so. This is mentioned only to emphasize that our knowledge is commensurate with our capacity to know, with the powers of our senses to understand and grasp. What is true of the visible world is also true of the existence of the invisible one. Whenever people ask me, "Does God exist?", "Does the soul exist?", I put this counter-question to them, "Do you possess the ability to experience the soul and God?" The real question is that of ability and not of the existence, or otherwise, of God. If you have the ability you will surely experience those truths which are beyond your reach now; in the absence of that ability, those truths will necessarily seem untruths. If some vague fear compels us to accept truths they cannot be real truths, for real Truth is what is experienced as such.

Twenty-five centuries ago a seeker after Truth fell at the feet of Lord Buddha, beseeching his guidance. "How do you visualize it?" he said. "What is your conception?" The Enlightened One said, "What I have conceived may not help you much since you don't have the eyes competent enough to visualise Truth. Whatever I may say will be taken as untruth because you cannot realize the reality of what you cannot experience." Narrating an anecdote the Buddha continued, "I had been to a village where they brought me a blind man, requesting me to convince him of the existence of light. I told them it was no better than madness since he hadn't the instrument of vision, namely the eyes. They should rather take him to a doctor who could rectify his eyes. Where there are eyes to see there is light." I say the same to you. Your concern need not be Truth. It should rather be whether you do have the eyes competent enough to see beyond the object. What is seen is nothing but matter and whatever there is, besides and beyond it, falls outside the range of our experience. Its sympathetic impulses, its waves of reaction fail to have any impact on us. When you meet a friend, your contact with him is confined only to his physical being. You do not come into close touch with his soul. When you see a tree in the open yard, you stop at the outer limits of its physical presence, but you do not have any access to its inner soul. Why? That is because one who has had no close contact with one's own soul and one who has had no experience of the sentient energy within, cannot hope to realize the all-pervasive Sentient Being. The question, therefore, is not of God, Truth or light but of vision. In my view, Dharma is more a remedy, a means of cure, than an object of deliberation. Fresh vistas of experience will open out within us if the slumbering impulses are goaded into activity, leaving at our disposal the knowledge of those things without which there is no purpose, no aim, and no meaning in life. Matter recedes into the background, leaving the impalpable behind, as our sensibility grows finer and our receptivity keener. A point is reached when the entire universe ceases to appear as a gross object of perception, and the pure unclouded vision of the Supreme Soul alone remains. In order to achieve this we shall have to prepare ourselves. The farmer prepares the soil before sowing seeds. Persons seeking the realization of the supreme must keep the ground in readiness and tune themselves within in order to hear the all-pervasive divine music without. The sun is visible because our eyes perceive it. The sun may leave its impact on us, because we have both, the visual organ and sufficient receptive capacity. I am speaking and my voice enters your heart, producing a responsive echo, because you have a sense-organ which enables the sound to come up to you. The Supreme Soul never ceases to exist even for a moment. Our vital breaths are all His; every limit is His; but we do not realize it because our own hands keep the passage of entrance closed to Him.

OSHO

WINGS OF LOVE AND RANDOM THOUGHT