Nowhere To Go But In Talks given from 29/5/74 am to 9/6/74 am Original in Hindi 16 Chapters Year published: Discourse series, title in Hindi: "Nahim Ram" Nowhere To Go But In Chapter #1 Chapter title: From the Alone to the Alone 25 May 1974 am in Buddha Hall [NOTE: This is a translation from the Hindi discourses: Nahim Ram Bin Thaon. It is being edited for publication, and this version is for reference only.] Question BELOVED OSHO, BEFORE WE ASK ANYTHING WE WOULD LIKE TO OFFER OUR GRATITUDE AND GREETINGS TO YOU. THE MYSTICS HAVE ALWAYS SAID THAT "THERE IS NOWHERE TO GO BUT IN." YOU ALSO SAY THE SAME. WE ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE WORDS, BUT OUR UNDERSTANDING OF IT DOES NOT GO BEYOND THE VERBAL LEVEL. COULD YOU PLEASE EXPLAIN THE DEEPER MEANING OF IT? Understanding at the verbal level is not worth calling understanding. In the world of religion there is no greater deception than words. The words can be understood, there is no difficulty in that, but that which is hidden behind the words remains uncomprehended, and that is the real difficulty. When the word is understood, but not that which lies behind the word, life becomes a great turmoil. We create the illusion of knowing when we do not know, and nothing is more dangerous than assuming that one knows when one does not. Life begins at the point where knowing happens. Life is transformed through knowing. But if we live under the illusion that we know religion because we know the words, then our mind travels in one direction while our life travels in another, and often these directions are completely opposite. This is why hypocrisy comes to be a daily routine in the life of the so-called religious man. The so-called religious man seems to be nothing but a hypocrite. He says one thing and lives another, and there is no harmony between what he says and what he lives. The origin of this lack of harmony is in the fact that he has substituted words for understanding. Let us consider a few more points about this before dealing with the question. The moment we hear the words god, soul, enlightenment, we immediately think that we understand them because we know their meaning that is written in the dictionaries. We know the meaning of "enlightenment"; we know the meaning of "God"; we know the meaning of "soul"; but the verbal meaning is not the existential meaning. Just to say the word god, just to hear the word god, is not to know God. The word god is not in itself God. Even if the speaker of the word has known, he cannot pass on his knowing to you. Only the words will reach you, not his experience. The words will become part of your memory. Your memory will become full and dense, a load, and will become a scripture. You will fall in the illusion that you know God because you have heard the word, have read it, and its meaning is given in the dictionary. But without reaching out to him, how can anyone know God? If it was so simple that God could be known just by referring to a dictionary, there would be no ignorant person left on this earth; everyone would have become a knower. If the etymology and grammar of the word liberation were the key to liberation, everybody would be free, no one would be in bondage. How simple it is to know a word! So mind, because it is afraid of the journey, creates the illusion. That mind should be afraid of the journey is only natural, because it is going to be a journey into death for it. The one who will set out in search of God will lose himself. But in referring to a dictionary there is no worry about losing oneself, in reciting the scriptures there is no question of losing oneself. But one who seeks enlightenment will disappear, because no enlightenment, no liberation, is possible without disappearance. Basically, it is the 'I' who is the bondage. Then how is enlightenment possible until this 'I' is dissolved? This 'I' is the wall between oneself and God. Until this wall falls, how can God be experienced? This journey is a journey of death. The seeker has set out to die. But only through dying is the ultimate life attained; only by losing oneself is one found. Because of this, mind is afraid... so it creates illusions and substitutes. Understand well this law of substitution: to find substitutes is the greatest art of the mind. What is not found in life, mind provides it in dreams. You are thirsty and fast asleep at night, you are dying of thirst. You will have to wake up. You will have to interrupt your sleep to go and find some water. But no, it is then that mind creates a substitute -- you start dreaming of a fountain, and in your dream you approach the fountain and drink to your heart's content. No need to interrupt your sleep! Not until you wake up in the morning do you discover that the water was no water, the fountain was no fountain, and there was no quenching of your thirst: it was all illusion. But only after waking up do you come to know this. The sleep in the night continued undisturbed; mind found the substitute to keep it so. Mind creates substitutes in life too, so that our sleep in life itself is not disturbed. If you are to know God, your sleep will be disturbed; it will come to an end. And we have a great vested interest in our sleep, because for lives upon lives we have treasured and cultivated only sleep, that is our only creation. And up to this very day our family, wife, friends, children, money and prestige are all part of our slumber. The moment our sleep ends, all this will disappear too. The whole edifice will disintegrate. If sleep ends, this whole world that we have thought as our world and all we have seen as ours, will disappear. When we wake up in the morning we cannot find the friends who inhabited our dreams. When we wake up in the morning we cannot find the palaces that crowded our dreams. After waking up, there is no way to find the treasures that were ours in the dream; they are gone, gone for ever. All this we have created in our dream; hence the fear that the dream may be broken, our sleep may be broken. So we live an unconscious life. The name for this unconsciousness is mind. And wherever there is any fear of the sleep being broken, mind immediately creates a substitute. In knowing God our sleep will end, but in knowing the word god, there is no cause for our slumber to end. On the contrary, our sleep deepens and is fortified. If we go to seek God, the world will disappear. By reciting the word God, we make God also a part of the world. This is why we build mosques and temples and gurudwaras. We construct the churches and temples next to our shops and homes in order to make them a part of the world. Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans, Sikhs, Jainas... we add these religious differences to our worldly turbulence -- as if there is not already enough trouble, enough politics; as if there is not already enough warfare, we add religious warfare, we fight in the name of religion. As it is, there is more than enough competition -- in the name of nations, for money, for prestige; but to these we add religious competition. We make even religion a part of the world. This is the art of the mind. Have you observed one thing? You must all have had dreams in which you dreamt that you woke up and the dream was broken. The alarm has gone off, it is morning, you are awake, you get out of your bed, you stand up and the dream has ended -- but this was all part of the dream. But to know that you had only dreamed all this is not possible until you really wake up in the morning. And to dream that one is awake is the most dangerous dream of all, because this is the pinnacle of illusion. The deepest dream of all is when a man dreams in the midst of his worldliness that he is religious. Instead of going on the search for God, we create a phony God around ourselves. If we go in search of the real God, we will come to an end. To save ourselves we invent the false God. Scriptures say God created the world. They may be right, but if we look at the gods around man -- they are all manmade. The image enshrined in the temple is made by you. And man is very clever: he bows and worships before the image he himself has made. He himself carves the image, he himself installs it in the temple, he converts stone into God, then kneels and prays before it. A great game! He offers worship and prayer to his toys, and returns home satisfied that he has been to the temple. This whole web is created by words. So it is rightly asked why understanding the verbal meaning does not lead to realization. Actually, nothing is understood through the word; only a substitute for understanding is created. It appears that one has understood., and this appearance is bad.