Everything Is Alive, Everything Is Conscious

Whatsoever is in existence is just a phenomenon of this consciousness, just a wave, just a crystallization of this consciousness – and nothing else exists. But this has to be felt. Analysis can be helpful, intellectual understanding can be helpful, but it has to be felt that nothing else exists, only consciousness. Then behave as if only consciousness exists.

I have heard about Lin Chi, a Zen master. As he was sitting one day in his hut someone came to see him. The man who came was angry. He may have been fighting with his wife or with his boss or something – but he was angry. He pushed open the door in anger, he threw down his shoes in anger and then he came, very respectfully, and bowed down to Lin Chi. Lin Chi said, “First go and ask forgiveness from the door and from the shoes.” The man must have looked at Lin Chi very strangely. There were other people also sitting there and they started laughing. Lin Chi said, “Stop!” and then said to the man, “If you don’t do it then leave. I will have nothing to do with you.” The man said, “It will look crazy to ask forgiveness from the shoes and from the door.” Lin Chi said, “It was not crazy when you expressed anger. Will it now be crazy? Everything has a consciousness. So you go, and unless the door forgives you, I am not going to allow you in.”

The man felt awkward but he had to go. Later on he became a monk himself and became enlightened. When he became enlightened, he related the whole anecdote and he said, “When I stood before the door, asking forgiveness, I felt awkward, foolish. But then I thought that if Lin Chi says so, there must be something in it. I trusted Lin Chi, so I thought that even if it was foolish do it. In the beginning whatsoever I was saying to the door was just superficial, artificial; but by and by I started to get warm. And Lin Chi was waiting and he said that he would watch. If the door forgave me, only then could I come in; otherwise I had to stay there until I had persuaded the door and the shoes to forgive me. By and by I became warm. I forgot that many people were looking. I forgot about Lin Chi – and then the concern became sincere and real. I started to feel the door and the shoes were changing their mood. And the moment I realized that the door and the shoes had changed and that they are feeling happy, Lin Chi immediately said that I could come. I had been forgiven.”

This incident became a transforming phenomenon in his life because for the first time he became aware that everything is really a crystallization of consciousness. If you cannot see it, it is because you are blind. If you cannot hear it, it is because you are deaf. There is nothing the matter with the things around you. Everything is condensed consciousness. The problem is with you – you are not open and sensitive.

This technique says, this consciousness exists as each being, and nothing else exists. Live with this notion. Be sensitive to this and wherever you move, move with this mind and this heart – that everything is consciousness and nothing else exists. Sooner or later, the world will change its face. Sooner or later, objects disappear and persons start appearing everywhere. Sooner or later, the whole world will be suddenly illumined and you will know that you were living in a world of dead things just because of your insensitivity. Otherwise everything is alive – not only alive, everything is conscious.

Everything deep down is nothing but consciousness. But if you leave it as a theory, if you believe in it as a theory, then nothing will happen. You will have to make it a way of life a style of life – behaving as if everything is conscious. In the beginning it will be an ‘as if’, and you will feel foolish, but if you can persist in your foolishness, and if you can dare to be foolish, soon the world will start revealing its mysteries.

Science is not the only methodology to use to enter the mysteries of existence. Really, it is the crudest methodology, the slowest. A mystic can enter existence in a single moment. Science will take millions of years to penetrate that much. The Upanishads say that the world is illusory, that matter is illusory, but only after five thousand years can science say that matter is illusory. The Upanishads say that deep down energy is conscious – science will take another five thousand years more. Mysticism is a jump; science is a very slow movement. The intellect cannot jump; it has to argue – argue every fact, prove, disprove, experiment. But the heart can jump immediately.

Remember, for the intellect a process is necessary, then comes the conclusion – process first, then the conclusion – logical. For the heart, conclusion comes first, then the process. It is just the reverse. That is why mystics cannot prove anything. They have the conclusion, but they don’t have the process.

You may not be aware, you may not have noticed, that mystics simply talk about conclusions. If you read the Upanishads you will find only conclusions. When for the first time they were translated into Western languages, Western philosophers couldn’t see the point – because there was no argument. How do you reach this conclusion? What is the proof? On what premises do you declare, “There is Brahma”? The Upanishads don’t say anything, they simply come to a conclusion. The heart reaches a conclusion immediately. And when the conclusion is reached, you can create the process. That is the meaning of theology.

Mystics reach the conclusion and theologians create the process. Jesus reached the conclusion and then the theologians – St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas – they created the process. That is secondary. The conclusion has been reached, now you have to find the proofs. The proof is in the life of the mystic. He cannot argue about it. He himself is the proof – if you can see it. If you cannot see, then there is no proof. Then religion is absurd.

Don’t make these techniques theories. They are not. They are jumps into experience, jumps into conclusion.

Osho, Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2, Ch 37 (excerpt)