You have come to me. You have taken a dangerous step…

You have come to me. You have taken a dangerous step. It is a risk because near me you can be lost forever. To come closer will mean death and cannot mean anything else. I am just like an abyss. Come closer to me and you will fall into me. For this, the invitation has been given to you. You have heard it and you have come.

Be aware that through me you are not going to gain anything. Through me you can only lose all – because unless you are lost, the divine cannot happen; unless you disappear totally, the real cannot arise. You are the barrier.

And you are so much, so stubbornly much, you are so filled with yourself that nothing can penetrate you. Your doors are closed. When you disappear, when you are not, the doors open. Then you become just like the vast, infinite sky.

And that is your nature. That is Tao.

Before I enter into Chuang Tzu’s beautiful parable of The Empty Boat, I would like to tell you one other story, because that will set the trend for this meditation camp which you are entering.

I have heard that it happened once, in some ancient time, in some unknown country, that a prince suddenly went mad. The king was desperate – the prince was the only son, the only heir to the kingdom. All the magicians were called, miracle makers, medical men were summoned, every effort was made, but in vain. Nobody could help the young prince, he remained mad.

The day he went crazy he threw off his clothes, became naked, and started to live under a big table. He thought that he had become a rooster. Ultimately the king had to accept the fact that the prince could not be reclaimed. He had gone insane permanently; all the experts had failed.

But one day again hope dawned. A sage – a Sufi, a mystic – knocked on the palace door, and said, “Give me one opportunity to cure the prince.”

But the king felt suspicious, because this man looked crazy himself, more crazy than the prince. But the mystic said, “Only I can cure him. To cure a madman a greater madman is needed. And your somebodies, your miracle makers, your medical experts, all have failed because they don’t know the abc of madness. They have never traveled the path.”

It seemed logical, and the king thought, “There is no harm in it, why not try?” So the opportunity was given to him.

The moment the king said, “Okay, you try,” this mystic threw off his clothes, jumped under the table and crowed like a rooster.

The prince became suspicious, and he said, “Who are you? And what do you think you are doing?”

The old man said, “I am a rooster, more experienced than you. You are nothing, you are just a newcomer, at the most an apprentice.”

The prince said, “Then it is okay if you are also a rooster, but you look like a human being.”

The old man said, “Don’t go on appearances, look at my spirit, at my soul.

I am a rooster like you.”

They became friends. They promised each other that they would always live together and that this whole world was against them.

A few days passed. One day the old man suddenly started dressing. He put on his shirt. The prince said, “What are you doing, have you gone crazy, a rooster trying to put on human dress?”

The old man said, “I am just trying to deceive these fools, these human beings. And remember that even if I am dressed, nothing is changed. My roosterness remains, nobody can change it. Just by dressing like a human being do you think I am changed?” The prince had to concede.

A few days afterwards the old man persuaded the prince to dress because winter was approaching and it was becoming so cold.

Then one day suddenly he ordered food from the palace. The prince became very alert and said, “Wretch, what are you doing? Are you going to eat like those human beings, like them? We are roosters and we have to eat like roosters.”

The old man said, “Nothing makes any difference as far as this rooster is concerned. You can eat anything and you can enjoy everything. You can live like a human being and remain true to your roosterness.”

By and by the old man persuaded the prince to come back to the world of humanity. He became absolutely normal.

The same is the case with you and me. And remember you are just initiates, beginners. You may think that you are a rooster but you are just learning the alphabet. I am an old hand, and only I can help you. All the experts have failed, that’s why you are here. You have knocked on many doors, for many lives you have been in search – nothing has been of help to you.

But I say I can help you because I am not an expert, I am not an outsider. I have traveled the same path, the same insanity, the same madness. I have passed through the same – the same misery, the anguish, the same nightmares. And whatsoever I do is nothing but to persuade – to persuade you to come out of your madness.

To think oneself a rooster is crazy; to think oneself a body is also crazy, even crazier. To think oneself a rooster is madness; to think oneself a human being is a greater madness, because you don’t belong to any form. Whether the form is that of a rooster or of a human being is irrelevant – you belong to the formless, you belong to the total, the whole. So whatsoever form you think you are, you are mad. You are formless. You don’t belong to any body, you don’t belong to any caste, religion, creed; you don’t belong to any name. And unless you become formless, nameless, you will never be sane.

Sanity means coming to that which is natural, coming to that which is ultimate in you, coming to that which is hidden behind you. Much effort is needed because to cut form, to drop, eliminate form, is very difficult. You have become so attached and identified with it.

This Samadhi Sadhana Shibir, this meditation camp, is nothing but to persuade you towards the formless – how not to be in the form. Every form means the ego: even a rooster has its ego, and man has his own. Every form is centered in the ego. The formless means egolessness; then you are not centered in the ego, then your center is everywhere or nowhere. This is possible, this which looks almost impossible is possible, because this has happened to me. And when I speak, I speak through experience.

Wherever you are, I was, and wherever I am, you can be. Look at me as deeply as possible and feel me as deeply as possible, because I am your future, I am your possibility.

Whenever I say surrender to me, I mean surrender to this possibility. You can be cured, because your illness is just a thought. The prince went mad because he became identified with the thought that he was a rooster. Everybody is mad unless he comes to understand that he is not identified with any form – only then, sanity.

So a sane person will not be anybody in particular. He cannot be. Only an insane person can be somebody in particular – whether a rooster or a man, a prime minister or a president, or anybody whatsoever. A sane person comes to feel the nobodiness. This is the danger….

You have come to me as somebody, and if you allow me, if you give me the opportunity, this somebodiness can disappear and you can become a nobody. This is the whole effort – to make you a nobody. But why? Why this effort to become a nobody? Because unless you become nobody you cannot be blissful; unless you become nobody you cannot be ecstatic; unless you become nobody the benediction is not for you – you go on missing life.

Really you are not alive, you simply drag, you simply carry yourself like a burden. Much anguish happens, much despair, much sorrow, but not a single ray of bliss – it cannot. If you are somebody, you are like a solid block of stone, nothing can penetrate you. When you are nobody you start to become porous. When you are nobody, really you are an emptiness, transparent, everything can pass through you. There is no hindrance, there is no barrier, no resistance. You become a passivity, a door.

Right now you are like a wall; a wall means somebody. When you become a door you become nobody. A door is just an emptiness, anybody can pass, there is no resistance, no barrier. Somebody… you are mad; nobody… you will become sane for the first time.

But the whole society, education, civilization, culture, all cultivate you and help you to become somebodies. That is why I say: religion is against civilization, religion is against education, religion is against culture – because religion is for nature, for Tao.

All civilizations are against nature, because they want to make you somebody in particular. And the more you are crystallized as somebody, the less and less the divine can penetrate into you.

You go to the temples, to the churches, to the priests, but there too you are searching for a way to become somebody in the other world, for a way to attain something, for a way to succeed. The achieving mind follows you like a shadow. Wherever you go, you go with the idea of profit, achievement, success, attainment. If somebody has come here with this idea he should leave as soon as possible, run as fast as possible from me, because I cannot help you to become somebody.

I am not your enemy. I can only help you to be nobody. I can only push you into the abyss… bottomless. You will never reach anywhere; you will simply dissolve. You will fall and fall and fall and dissolve, and the moment you dissolve the whole existence feels ecstatic. The whole existence celebrates this happening.

Buddha attained this. Because of language I say attained; otherwise the word is ugly, there is no attainment – but you will understand. Buddha attained this emptiness, this nothingness. For two weeks, for fourteen days continuously, he sat in silence, not moving, not saying, not doing anything.

It is said that the deities in heaven became disturbed – rarely it happens that someone becomes such total emptiness. The whole of existence felt a celebration, so deities came. They bowed down before Buddha and they said, “You must say something, you must say what you have attained.”

Buddha is reported to have laughed and said, “I have not attained anything; rather, because of this mind, which always wants to attain something, I was missing everything. I have not achieved anything, this is not an achievement; rather, on the contrary, the achiever has disappeared. I am no more, and, see the beauty of it – when I was, I was miserable, and when I am no more, everything is blissful, the bliss is showering and showering continuously on me, everywhere. Now there is no misery.”

Buddha had said before: Life is misery, birth is misery, death is misery – everything is miserable. It was miserable because the ego was there. The boat had not been empty. Now the boat was empty; now there was no misery, no sorrow, no sadness. Existence had become a celebration and it would remain a celebration to eternity, for ever and forever.

That’s why I say that it is dangerous that you have come to me. You have taken a risky step. If you are courageous, then be ready for the jump.

The whole effort is how to kill you, the whole effort is how to destroy you. Once you are destroyed, the indestructible will come up – it is there, hidden. Once all that which is nonessential is eliminated, the essential will be like a flame – aliveness, total glory. […]

Osho, The Empty Boat, Ch 2 (excerpt)