The tenth bhumi: Dharma-megha

To read the other parts of the discourse go to: The Ten Grounds of the Way

And the tenth is dharma-megha: grace showering, becoming a cloud of truth, love and grace. Dharma-megha.…

Have you watched that just a few days ago there were so many clouds, raining, showering on the thirsty earth?

Buddha says: Unless you become a showering of grace you will not attain to the ultimate.

The nine grounds are to prepare you. The tenth ground is the beginning of sharing; you start showering.

Whatsoever you get you have to share; then you will get more. Whatsoever you have, you have to shower, you have to give it to others, you have to distribute it. All that you attain in your being has to become your compassion. Then you will get more. The more you become a spendthrift of your inner energies, the more space will be created for God to descend in you, for truth to penetrate you.

That’s why it is very difficult to know the truth and not to share it. It is impossible! Mahavir remained silent for twelve years, then suddenly one day he burst forth. What happened? For twelve years he was silent; he must have been moving into the nine grounds. Then came the tenth; he become a dharma-megha: he became a cloud of truth and started showering.

You cannot do anything about it. It is just like a flower opening and releasing its fragrance to the winds. It is just like a lamp burning and showering its light all around. There is no way to prevent it; you cannot be miserly about truth.

Buddha attained to truth, then for forty-two years continuously he moved from one place to another – continuously talking, continuously saying what had happened to him.

One day he was asked, “You teach us to be silent but you go on talking.”

Buddha said: I have to talk to teach you to be silent. Be silent, so that one day you can also talk. Be silent, because in silence you will gather the juice.

The flower remains closed until the right moment has come when the fragrance is ready. Then it opens its petals, not before it.

Be silent, be aware, be adventurous – one day all of these nine bhumis, these nine grounds, will prepare you to become a cloud. Then you will shower on people and you will share.

Truth has always been shared in different ways. Meera danced; she knew how to dance the truth. Buddha never danced. Chaitanya sang; he knew how to sing. Buddha never sang. It depends on the individual. Whatsoever capacities you have, whatsoever creative possibilities you have, when truth comes into you it will find your possibilities, your creativities.

Just the other night a sannyasin was saying to me, “It is very difficult; the more I become meditative, the more I like to compose music.” He’s a composer and he had stopped it. Now he thinks that this is like a disturbance: “What is happening? Whenever I am feeling meditative, immediately great ideas arise in me and I would like to compose. Now, what to do? Should I stop it?”

There is no need to stop. Meditation brings your creativity to an expression. Whatsoever is hidden in you will become unhidden; whatsoever you are carrying within you will be sung, will be danced – whatsoever it is. You will become a dharma-megha.

These three answers from the three monks show three types of understanding: the bodily, the psychological, and the spiritual. Breath means spirit – that’s why I call the third understanding spiritual. If you have the first understanding then these ten bhumis are not for you. If you have the second type of understanding, then too these ten grounds are not for you. If you have the third understanding, then these ten grounds are for you.

And unless you can become a dharma-megha, remember, your life was in vain. You lived without any purpose, you lived fruitlessly, barrenly. In fact, you lived not; you only appeared to live.

So meditate on this small story of Buddha’s, his asking, and the answers… just meditate on it. I will tell you a few anecdotes to show you how we understand.

A minister asked a little girl what she thought of her first church service.

“Well,” she said, after giving the matter some thought, “the music was nice, but the commercial was too long.”

Now, a small girl – she knows only how to watch TV; that’s her understanding. And she knows music and commercials. In the church also she thought that the sermon was the commercial. She said, “The music was nice, but the commercial was too long.”

The couple were married forty years. She decided to get a check-up at the hospital.

When she came home, she was ecstatic.

“The doctor says I am in perfect health,” she bragged to her husband. “In fact, he said I can have sex twelve times a month.”

“Wonderful!” said the husband. ” Put me down for two.”

Now a businessman is a businessman – “Put me down for two.”

Two corpses were laid out in the same room at the funeral home. One night when everybody left, one corpse sat up and asked the other, “What did you die from?”

“Cigarettes,” he answered. “I just smoked too many cigarettes.”

“What kind did you smoke?”

“Raleighs,” he answered.

“At least, did you save the coupons?”

“Hell yes! How do you think I got this coffin?”

Even when people are dead they will continue. Naturally, it is natural that they will continue their old past, their old ways of understanding, calculation.

The girlie show was touring the army camps in Viet Nam. At one outpost, arrangements were being made to feed them before leaving.

“I say,” said the officer in charge. “Would you like to mess with the officers?”

“Don’t mind if we do, dear,” said the leading lady, “but can’t we have something to eat first?”

Now a girlie show is a girlie show…. Even words don’t carry the meaning that they have. You put the meaning into them. Each time you utter a word, watch; each time you listen to a word, watch; each time you make a gesture, watch – and you will see that whatsoever your level of understanding, it is expressed in all the ways.

Seated in a restaurant, a priest was scrutinizing the beauty of a young lady escorted by her male companion. A layman kidded him about his female interest.

“Just because I am on a perpetual diet does not mean I can’t study the menu once in a while!” said the priest.

Your inner – repressed, rejected, thrown into the basement, also goes on reflecting in your ways. Even sometimes when you avoid something, then too, in your very avoidance your understanding is shown.

The famous story of two Zen monks.…

Crossing a ford they came across a woman, a very young and beautiful woman. She wanted to cross but she was afraid. So one monk took her on his shoulders and carried her to the other shore. The other monk was furious, the other monk was fiery: “It is prohibited! A Buddhist monk should not touch a woman. Now this is too much. Not only touching: he has carried the woman on his shoulder!”

The monk remained quiet, but he was boiling within.

Miles passed. When they reached the monastery, when they were entering the door, the other monk turned to the first and said, “Look, I will have to talk to the Master. I will have to report it. It is prohibited!”

The first monk said, “What are you talking about? What is prohibited?”

He said, “Have you forgotten? You carried that young beautiful woman on your shoulders. You should not touch!”

The first monk laughed and he said, “Yes, I carried her, but I left her on the other bank, miles back. Are you still carrying her?”

Yes, the other monk was still carrying her.

Remember that your understanding is shown in every way, and if you watch correctly, your very watchfulness will take you to a further step.

One unfortunate sailor was shipwrecked on a desert island in the South Pacific. Fortunately food and water were plentiful, and the weather was perfect. So he survived in comparative comfort for six months, after which time, to his intense excitement, he spotted a small craft on the horizon.

As it drifted in closer and closer, he could see that it was a ship’s life-raft containing one passenger. And as it got even closer he saw this passenger was a young woman. Eventually the raft splashed up on the beach and he went towards her. She was a beauty – tall and glowing and blonde, and a cracker.

“Hello! hello!” said the poor lonely sailor. “Are you shipwrecked too?”

“Yes, I am,” she replied.

“I have been here for six months,” he said.

“Six months!” she exclaimed. “Well, then I am sure I have got something you have been missing.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve got a fag on you!” he cried joyously.

Your own desire, your own understanding, your own greed, is always there in each response, in each reaction. If you watch closely you will become aware that you go on showing your understanding or misunderstanding in each moment of your life.

Buddha’s questions are very simple, and the monks who answered may not have thought at all that they have any metaphysical significance. They may even have laughed at the ridiculous questions Buddha was asking them. But with very simple questions he had provoked their layer of understanding. The significance of the story is great. I never ask you any questions, but the questions you ask me are enough. They show everything about you. When I read your question, I am less concerned about your question than I am concerned with the questioner. I am more concerned with the questioner.

That’s why I insist that you should always write your name under the question, you should always sign it – because a question in itself means nothing. It becomes meaningful only when I know who the questioner is. My answer is not for the question, but for the questioner. One may ask a question and I may answer it in one way, another asks exactly the same question, with the same words, but I will not answer in the same way – because it is not the question that is important, it is the questioner.

Your question shows your understanding. Your question shows your confusion. Your question shows where you are. And I have to answer you where you are. Remember it.

In darshan it happens many times, and it is better that you should remember it. Many people come; somebody asks a question, others listen. You are allowed to listen, but those answers that I am giving to that particular person are not given for you. Otherwise there would be great misunderstanding.

It happens sometimes that a questioner says something, I explain it to him, I help him to understand his problem; another comes and he says, “That is exactly my question and you have already answered.” I say, “No, don’t be deceived so easily. You two are so different. In fact, there are no two similar persons in the world, so how can your questions be similar? You ask your question, and forget what I have said to the other.”

And then many times people become puzzled, because they see that I can contradict myself.

Just the other night one person asked about fear: “I am afraid.” I talked to him about death because I could see why he was afraid. Death was in his eyes, death was around him, he was shadowed by death. I talked much about death rather than about fear, and he understood it. I said to him, “Accept death and fear will disappear.”

The next person said, “Now there is no need to ask. I have also fear in me and you have answered.” I looked at the person; his fear had no relationship with death at all. His fear was fear of loneliness; it was a totally different dimension of fear. And I said, “Forget all that I have said to the other person. It was not your question and it was not answered for you. Tell me about your fear.” And by and by it became clear that his fear had nothing to do with death. His fear was fear of being left alone; fear that maybe his aloneness would always remain there.

The first was afraid of death, the second was afraid about whether love would happen or not. His fear was concerned with love – whether he would remain always alone, or would somebody be there who would love him? And would he be able to love? Would there be a possibility that he would be together with somebody and this constant wound of loneliness would disappear? He was not worried about death, he was worried about life. His fear was not concerned with death, his fear was concerned with life and relationship and communication and communion, love. They were totally different, but they both used the word ‘fear’.

And when I give different answers to different people, naturally you can collect all the answers and you will see: “This man is mad!” They will be contradictory. They are bound to be contradictory. My approach is individual; my approach is person-to-person. I try to relate with you as individuals. In the morning discourse you can meditate over whatsoever I say, but whenever you are deciding to do something, ask me in person. Don’t decide it through the morning discourse because you are too many, and I am talking in a general way. The morning discourse is just to make principles clear to you. The darshan is to make practice clear to you, not principle. The morning discourse is just to make you aware that so many possibilities are there to grow, and how to grow. But I am not talking to you personally, I cannot. Darshan is so that you can ask personal questions, you can approach me and you can see your face in my mirror and I can see directly into your eyes. The morning discourse is more philosophical, the evening darshan is more religious.

And if you can remember this difference, there will be great benefit out of it, a great understanding out of it.

Osho, The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 4, Ch 7 (excerpt part 5)

To read the other parts of the discourse go to: The Ten Grounds of the Way

Audio submitted by Siddho Varza