Maneesha has asked a question: Our beloved Master, What is the difference between a puzzle and a mystery?
Maneesha, a puzzle is solvable. However difficult it may be, you can find the solution. The mystery becomes more mysterious the more you search. You cannot solve the mystery, you can only dissolve into it.
I have heard about a professor of mathematics. It was New Year’s Day and he wanted to purchase some toy for his child. Being a mathematician, he looked for some kind of mathematical puzzle. The owner of the shop said, “I have got absolutely the right thing for you. I know you are a great mathematician and this is the latest toy. But before giving it to your child, please try to solve it yourself.”
The mathematician tried to solve it, this way and that way – in every way it was wrong. Desperate and perspiring, because it was looking very awkward… other customers gathered, the salesmen gathered, the owner was watching. With tremendous interest, everybody was watching to see whether a professor of mathematics could solve a simple child’s puzzle or not. Finally he gave up. He said to the owner, “I don’t see any way to solve it.”
He said, “You need not be so sad, and don’t perspire and don’t be worried. This toy is made in such a way that any way you try, you will be wrong. This toy is meant for a certain purpose: to teach children that this is how life is. You try it any way, and you will end up in a wrong place.”
You can ask anybody. Everybody has ended up in the wrong place. It is very rare to find a buddha, who ends up in the right place; otherwise everybody is trying hard, but always reaches the grave with empty hands.
A puzzle, Maneesha, can be solved. The mystery cannot be solved. That is the difference. The mystery becomes more mysterious as you try to solve it, and sooner or later you find that the mystery is so big, by and by you are dissolving into it rather than solving it.
Kabir, one of the most important mystics of India, made a statement worth remembering:
Herat, herat, he sakhi Kabir raha herai.
He is saying, “My friend, I was searching and searching, and rather than finding I have lost myself.”
The mystery is that in which you will be lost. It will dissolve you. You will become part of the mystery itself.
But the puzzle is a small thing, it can be solved.
It is time for Sardar Gurudayal Singh.
Mick and Stella McManus live on a small island off the west coast of Ireland. They have fourteen kids, and life is hard. One day, Mick decides that he has had enough.
“Stella!” he shouts, “I’m leaving you!”
So he jumps into his little rowing boat and starts rowing towards the mainland, leaving Stella standing on the beach.
“But Mick, what about the house?” shouts Stella.
“I’m sorry Stella,” replies Mick, “but I’m leaving you!” And he keeps on rowing out to sea.
“But Mick!” pleads Stella. “What about the children?”
“It’s no good Stella,” replies Mick, “I am leaving you!” And he keeps on rowing.
“But Mick!” cries Stella, pulling up her dress and displaying her feminine charms. “What about this?”
“Ah! God!” mutters Mick, rowing back to the beach. “One of these days I am really going to leave you!”
Kowalski and Zabriski go moose hunting every year in Canada, to try and catch moose for the local zoo. This year, as usual, they hire a seaplane and a pilot. They fly deep into the Canadian wilderness, and land on a lake.
As the pilot drops them on the shore, he gives them a warning.
“Now remember,” he says, “only one moose, or we will have too much weight to take off again. I will be back to pick you up in a week.”
The plane takes off into the air and the two Polacks, armed with a crate full of vodka, take off into the wilderness.
One week later, they are standing on the shore with two moose when the plane arrives.
“I told you guys, only one moose!” cries the pilot.
“Come on,” replies Kowalski, “last year the pilot took us with two moose. He was not afraid!”
Eventually, after a lot of vodka and persuasion, the pilot agrees and they push the two moose onto the plane.
The plane starts from the shore, but there is too much weight to take off and they crash into the trees at the other end of the lake. The moose escape and run off into the forest.
Kowalski and Zabriski wake up and look around at the wreckage.
“Where are we?” asks Zabriski, completely dazed.
“Ah!” says Kowalski, looking back at the lake. “About a hundred yards further than last year!”
Kevin McMurphy, a good Irish Catholic boy, goes to see the priest, Father Dingle.
“Father,” says Kevin, “my wife Kathleen is going to have a baby!”
“Praise the Lord!” exclaims the priest.
“Yes, Father!” says Kevin, “and it being our first, Kathleen and I were wondering if you could be praying in the hospital chapel while she is delivering it?”
“Say no more, my son. It shall be done,” says Dingle. “And bring along your parents and Kathleen’s family to help with the praying.”
When Kathleen goes into labor, Kevin phones Father Dingle and both sets of parents. And half an hour later, Kevin is pacing up and down outside the delivery room when the nurse sticks her head out.
“It’s a boy!” she cries, and Kevin runs downstairs to the chapel, where everyone is praying.
“A boy! A boy!” cries Kevin, and dashes back upstairs.
As he arrives back at the delivery room door, the nurse pops her head out, and cries, “Now it’s a girl!”
“Holy Jesus!” cries Kevin, and runs back down to the chapel.
“Twins!” shouts Kevin, “I am the father of twins! It’s a girl!”
Father Dingle and the families start singing “Hail Mary’s” to the blessed Virgin.
Kevin races back upstairs, and as he reaches the delivery room he hears the doctor say, “Another boy!”
Kevin turns round and rushes back downstairs, flings open the door of the chapel, and shouts, “Triplets!”
“Triplets?” cries Father Dingle.
“Yes,” screams Kevin, “and for God’s sake, stop praying!“
Nivedano…
(Drumbeat)
(Gibberish)
(Drumbeat)
Be silent. Close your eyes, feel your body to be completely frozen.
Now look inwards, with total consciousness and with a great urgency, as if this moment is your last moment.
One should live in the same way. Every moment is the last moment. Then only can one live totally.
Go deeper, make a spear of your consciousness. The moment you touch your center of being, flowers will start showering all over.
Just be a witness of the silence, of the peace, of the deep contentment, of the immense sky that opens up from your center.
To make it more clear, Nivedano…
(Drumbeat)
Simply witness: you are not the body, you are not the mind. You are only a witnessing consciousness.
This witnessing consciousness is the door to the divine.
This witnessing consciousness is what we have been calling the buddha.
This buddha has to be brought to every act, to every gesture, to every word, to every silence. It has to become a reality, twenty-four hours. Only then is life a perfection, a completion.
One has come home.
Gather as many flowers… and the stars and the fragrance. You have to bring the buddha with you. Soon Nivedano will be calling you back. As you get up, get up with grace, with beauty, with silence, with immense blissfulness surrounding you.
This moment, the night has become the most blissful it has ever been.
This moment, the Buddha Auditorium is just a lake of consciousness. You all have disappeared in it. Ten thousand buddhas have just become a lake of consciousness.
Nivedano…
(Drumbeat)
Come back, but come back as buddhas – with as much grace as possible, with great serenity and silence – a few minutes just to sit and recollect where you have been.
Remember the center, and the path that leads to it. You have to go on this path again and again till your circumference and center become one. Till you are a buddha, without any doubt.
It is everybody’s destiny.
Okay, Maneesha?
Yes, Beloved Master.
Osho, Joshu: The Lion’s Roar, Ch 8, Q 1
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