Osho is asked to ‘say something about acting’.
Beloved Master,
You once said that acting is the most spiritual of professions, and now we have a theatre group. Can you say something about acting?
Krishna Prem, acting is certainly the most spiritual of professions for the simple reason that the actor has to be in a paradox: he has to become identified with the act he is performing, and yet remain a watcher.
If he is acting as Hamlet he has to become absolutely involved in being a Hamlet, he has to forget himself totally in his act, and yet at the deepest core of his being he has to remain a spectator, a watcher. If he really becomes absolutely identified with Hamlet, then there is bound to be trouble.
[…] The real actor has to live a paradox: he has to act as if he is what he is acting, and yet deep down he knows that “I am not this.” That’s why I say acting is the most spiritual of professions.
…the whole of life
is nothing but
a drama enacted.
The really spiritual person transforms his whole life into acting. Then this whole earth is just a stage, and all the people are nothing but actors, and we are enacting a play. Then if you are a beggar you play your act as beautifully as you can, and if you are the king you play your act as beautifully as you can. But deep down the beggar knows, “I am not it,” and the king too knows, “I am not it.”
If the beggar and the king both know that “What I am doing and acting is just acting; it is not me, not my reality,” then both are arriving at the very center of their being, what I call witnessing. Then they are performing certain acts and witnessing too.
So, Krishna Prem, acting is certainly the most spiritual profession, and all spiritual persons are nothing but actors. The whole earth is their stage, and the whole of life is nothing but a drama enacted.
Osho, The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha,Vol 5, Ch 9
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