“All paths can lead to it because in a way it is already achieved. It is within you. You are not seeking something new. You are seeking something which you have forgotten.”
Pure consciousness can be achieved through many paths. The real thing is not a path. The real thing is the authenticity of the seeker. Let me emphasize this.
You can travel on any path. If you are sincere and authentic, you will reach to the goal. Some paths may be hard, some may be easier, some may have greenery on both sides, some may be moving through deserts, some may have beautiful scenery around them, some may not have any scenery around them, that’s another thing; but if you are sincere and honest and authentic and true, then each path leads to the goal. Krishna has said in Shrimad Bhagavad Geeta, “Whatever path men travel is my path. No matter where they walk, it leads to me.”
So it simply can be reduced to one thing: that authenticity is the path. No matter what path you follow, if you are authentic, every path leads to him. And the opposite is also true: no matter what path you follow, if you are not authentic, you will not reach anywhere. Your authenticity brings you back home, nothing else. All paths are just secondary. The basic thing is to be authentic, to be true.
There is a Sufi story:
A man heard that if he went to a certain place in the desert at dawn and stood facing a distant mountain, his shadow would point to a great buried treasure. The man left his cabin before the first light of day and at dawn was standing in the designated place. His shadow shot out long and thin over the surface of the sand. “How fortunate,” he thought as he envisioned himself with great wealth. He began digging for the treasure. He was so involved with his work that he did not notice the sun climbing in the sky and shortening his shadow, and then he noticed it. It was now almost half of the previous size. He became worried and started digging again in the new spot. Hours later, at noon, the man again stood in the designated spot. He cast no shadow. He became very much worried. He started crying and weeping – the whole effort lost. Now where is the place?
Then there passed a Sufi Master, who started laughing at him and said, “Now exactly the shadow is pointing to the treasure. It is within you.”
All paths can lead to it because in a way it is already achieved. It is within you. You are not seeking something new. You are seeking something which you have forgotten. And how can you really forget it? That’s why we go on searching for bliss, because we cannot forget it. It goes on resounding inside us. The search for bliss, the search for joy, the search for happiness is nothing but the search for God. You may not have used the word “God,” that doesn’t matter, but all searching for bliss is the search for God – is the search for something that you knew, that one day was yours and you lost.
That’s why all the great saints have said “remember.” Buddha calls it samyak smriti, “right remembrance.” Nanak calls it nam smaran, “remembering the name” – remembering the address. Have you not observed many times it happens? You know something, you say, “It is exactly on the tip of my tongue,” but still it is not coming. God is at the tip of your tongue.
In a small school the chemistry teacher wrote a formula on the blackboard, and he asked a small boy to stand up and tell him what this formula represents. The boy looked, and he said, “Sir, it is just on the tip of my tongue, but I cannot remember.”
The teacher said, “Spit it out! Spit it out! It is potassium cyanide!”
God is also on the tip of the tongue, and I will tell you, “Swallow it! Swallow it! Don’t spit it out! It is God!” Let him circulate in your blood. Let him become part of your innermost vibrations. Let him become a song inside your being, a dance.
Osho, Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega (Discourses on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali), Vol 9, Ch 9 (excerpt)
Featured image: The sandy Sahara desert on the border of Morocco and Algeria (commons.wikimedia.org)
Series compiled by Shanti
All excerpts of this series can be found in: 1001 Tales
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