Memories in the cosmic unconscious

The unconscious mind is nine times bigger than the conscious; it has tremendous treasures, all the memories of your past. And below the unconscious there is the collective unconscious. One can descend into the collective unconscious also – at first with somebody’s help. That used to be the work of a mystery school – that the master will take you slowly towards the unconscious and the collective unconscious. In your collective unconscious you have memories of your past lives as animals, as birds.

Below the collective unconscious is the cosmic unconscious. Slowly, slowly one can go deeper and deeper, and the cosmic unconscious has memories of your being trees, rosebushes, stones.

So mind is not only that which you know; there is much to be discovered in your own mind. It is yours, it is there – but not easily available. There are reasons why it is not easily available. Nature makes barriers, because it would confuse you if there were no barriers between the conscious, and the unconscious, and the collective unconscious, and the cosmic unconscious. Even this small mind – the conscious mind – is so confusing, so disturbing. If you knew all that you have lived for millennia, from the very beginning, naturally you would get in such a mess, in such a madness.

For example, you love a woman. She may have been your mother in a past life, and if you remember it then you will be in trouble. But she may have been, in your collective unconscious, your murderer; then things become even more complicated. And those realities are as authentic as the realities of your life. You will get mixed up: how are you going to behave with this woman who is your wife, who was your mother, who was your murderer? Whatever you do with this woman will create guilt in you. You will not be at ease. That’s the reason why nature goes on putting barriers between your past existences and allows you only this life’s memories.

…there is much
to be discovered
in your own mind.

The science of hypnosis has been condemned by all religions, and the reason is that if hypnotism becomes accepted as a scientific enquiry – and once it is explored it has to be accepted, because it fulfills all the criteria of being a science – then there will be trouble: Christians cannot say there is only one life, Mohammedans can’t say there is only one life, Darwin can’t say that man has evolved from the apes. It will depend on the research done through thousands of peoples’ total minds, and what they say.

Hindus believe that man’s consciousness has evolved from the consciousness of cows – that’s why they call them “mother.” And I think a cow being a mother looks more relevant than a monkey being a father. The Hindus are saying this through a certain research into the mind, which has been available for centuries in the East: how to go into past lives. And there has not been a single exception – whenever you cross the border of the collective unconscious mind, you pass from the body of a cow, not from the body of a monkey.

It is not a question of hypotheses. With Darwin it is only hypothetical, just a conjecture, and now he is being refuted, even by scientists. Now there are not many Darwinians; they are out of date.

The latest research into evolution does not help Darwin and his theory. They say that for thousands of years we have not seen any monkey evolving into a man, and neither have we seen the reverse – that a man reverses into a monkey. And Darwin could not provide the missing link – which he was asked for again and again his whole life; it was a nightmare for him! It cannot be just a jump from a monkey to a man: this moment you are a monkey and next moment you decide to be a man, and you become a man. There must be a missing link… not only a link, perhaps many links, many steps slowly, slowly, but they should be available.

Darwin could not even find dead bodies that would have been a proof of a link. We have been searching for dead bodies and we have found one ninety thousand years old – a human body in China. But it is still human; it is not a monkey. It was preserved by the snow. It is still human, as human as you are.

But Hindus have a totally different approach. It is to be remembered that this is the only point on which all the three religions that were born in India agree: about everything else they have their own philosophy, but about reincarnation they all agree. And that is not just an accident, because all three religions were working on the same lines – looking into the unconscious of man – and they all found the same results. To call the cow mother… the whole world laughs at it, but I don’t think anybody understands why Hindus call the cow mother. If they are right – the cow has the qualities of a mother, and it is far better to be connected with the cows than with the monkeys.

Osho, Beyond Psychology, Ch 34, Q 1 (excerpt)