Theologia Mystica Discourses on the Treatise of St. Dionysius Talks given from 11/08/80 am to 25/08/80 am English Discourse series CHAPTER 1 11 August 1980 am in Buddha Hall THOU TRINITY BEYOND BEING, DIRECT US TO THE HEIGHT OF MYSTICAL REVELATION, SUBLIME BEYOND ALL THOUGHT AND LIGHT; WHEREIN THE SIMPLE, ABSOLUTE AND IMMUTABLE MYSTERIES OF DIVINE TRUTH ARE HIDDEN IN THE TRANSLUCENT DARKNESS OF THAT SILENCE WHICH REVEALETH IN SECRET. FOR THIS DARKNESS, THOUGH OF DEEPEST OBSCURITY, IS YET RADIANTLY CLEAR, AND, THOUGH BEYOND TOUCH AND SIGHT, IT OVERFILLS OUR UNSEEING MINDS WITH SPLENDORS OF TRANSCENDENT BEAUTY. THIS IS MY PRAYER. AS YOU , BELOVED TIMOTHY, EXERTING YOURSELF SINCERELY IN MYSTICAL CONTEMPLATION, QUIT THE SENSES, THE WORKINGS OF THE INTELLECT, AND ALL THAT MAY BE SENSED AND KNOWN, AND ALL THAT IS NOT AND IS. FOR BY THIS YOU MAY UNKNOWINGLY ATTAIN, IN AS FAR AS IT IS POSSIBLE, TO THE ONENESS OF HIM WHO IS BEYOND ALL BEING AND KNOWLEDGE. THUS THROUGH INDOMITABLE, ABSOLUTE AND PURE DETACHMENT OF YOUR SELF FROM ALL THINGS, YOU WILL BE LIFTED UP TO THAT RADIANCE OF THE DIVINE DARKNESS WHICH IS BEYOND BEING, SURPASSING ALL AND FREE FROM ALL. Man up to now has lived in a very schizophrenic way. The reason why he has become divided is not very difficult to understand. For centuries he has been told that the world consists not of one world but of two worlds: the world of matter and the world of the spirit. This is absolute nonsense. The world consists only of one truth. Of course, that truth has two aspects to it, but those aspects are indivisible. The outer aspect appears as matter and the inner as spirit. It is lie a center and its circumference. This division has penetrated human mind in a thousand and one ways. It has become the separation between the body and the soul. It has become the separation between the 2 CHAPTER 1. lower and the higher. It has become the separation between the sin and the virtue. It has become the separation between the East and the West. Man stands today so fragmented, so divided, that it is almost a miracle how we are managing to keep ourselves together. The whole energy is exhausted in just keeping ourselves together, because we are constantly falling apart. The greatest need of the day it to get beyond this schizophrenia, to get beyond all divisions, to reach to the ”one” which is neither this nor that, which is neither East nor West, which is neither man nor woman. That ”one” has been called by the mystics God, truth, MOKSHA, NIRVANA, the absolute, Dhamma, Logos, Tao – different names but pointing to the same one reality. It was possible up to now somehow to go on living in a schizophrenic way, but now it is no longer possible. We have come to a point where the decision has to be made. If we want to exist we have to create a synthesis, or rather a transcendence, of all dualities. If we don’t want to exist then there is no problem. If we want to commit a global suicide, then of course all problems are solved – but I don’t think anybody wants or desires a global suicide. Man has achieved much in spite of all kinds of madness. Man has reached many peaks: religious, aesthetic, poetic, musical. And all this has happened in spite of all kinds of madness that we go on supporting, nourishing, because the vested interests don’t want you to be united and one; the vested interests want you to remain divided. When Rudyard Kipling said, ”East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,” he was giving expression to all the vested interests. They want the world to remain divided, they want man to remain divided – into many religions, philosophies, political ideologies, in every possible way they would like you not to become one. Why? – because the man who is integrated and one is impossible to enslave. He cannot be exploited by the priests or by the politicians. In fact, he becomes absolutely free from all possibilities of exploitation and oppression. He becomes an individual, he becomes rebellious, he becomes intelligent. He becomes so sharp and clear that he can see through all superstitions, howsoever old and ancient. He can see the stupidity in which humanity has lived – and not only lived in but glorified. He can see the foolishness of nationalities, the utter nonsense of so many religions in the world. There are three hundred religions’ in the world and at least three thousand subsects. He can see clearly that to divide matter from spirit is to create a division in the very being of man – because the body, matter, is nothing but spirit manifest, and the spirit is nothing but matter, body, unmanifest. God and the world are not tWo things. God is not the creator and the world is not the created; God and the world are one. It is a process of creativity. You can divide creativity in two parts, the creator and the created, but in fact that division is arbitrary. It is ONE flow of creativity God is not the creator, let me remind you again and again and the world is not the created. This whole existence is a riverlike creative energy. My sannyasins have to understand this oneness in as many ways as possible so that no nook and corner of your being remains divided. The West is very proud of its materialism, science, technology. That pride hinders it from getting into a deep communion with the East, but that pride is nothing compared to the Eastern ego. Theologia Mystica 3 Osho CHAPTER 1. The Eastern ego is far more subtle and far more dangerous, far more poisonous. The Eastern ego pretends, projects, brags about its spirituality. Of course, the people who think they are spiritual can condemn the people who are materialists more easily than vice versa, because even the materialist feels somehow that matter is a lower reality. He may not even consciously believe in any higher reality, but the conditioning is so old – it has penetrated into the blood, into the bones, into the very marrow – that a man can become consciously a materialist but deep down he remains part of the whole heritage of humanity. Hence the Western ego is not much of a danger, but the Eastern ego is very dangerous – for the simple reason that it is more subtle, more hidden, not on the surface, more unconscious. The East goes on proclaiming itself as the source of all spirituality, the source of all mysticism – which is patent nonsense. It depends only on ignorance. If you ask any Eastern so-called mahatma, you will be surprised that he knows nothing about other spiritual Masters who have existed in other parts of the world. He has not heard about Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Lieh Tzu, Ko Hsuan. He has not heard about Lin Chi, Basho, Bokuju. He has not heard anything about Pythagoras, Heraclitus or Dionysius. WE ARE going to discuss Dionysius in this series. Dionysius is one of the greatest Buddhas ever. And whenever the Eastern scholar by any chance, if at all, comes across a person like Dionysius, he starts thinking that he must have borrowed from the East. That seems to be a tacit assumption: that the East has some monopoly over spiritualism. Nobody has any monopoly. East or West cannot make any difference in man s spiritual growth. Jesus could become a Buddha in Jerusalem, Lao Tzu could become a Buddha in China, Dionysius could become a Buddha in Athens. There is no need to borrow from anybody. Yes, in scientific experimentation we have discovered very recently a strange phenomenon: that whenever one scientist discovers something, almost simultaneously many people all around the earth discover the same thing in different ways. Albert Einstein is reported to have said, ”If I had not discovered the Theory of Relativity, then within two years somebody else was bound to discover it.” Why does it happen that some scientist working somewhere far away in Soviet Russia discovers something almost simultaneously with some other scientist who is working in England or in America or in India or in Japan – not knowing anything of the other, not even being aware of the existence of the other, not knowing that somebody else is also working on the same problem? Now it is becoming more and more clear that with all the great discoveries, although the initial effort is made by the conscious mind, the ultimate result always comes through the unconscious. And the deepest layer of the unconscious mind is collective. I am different from you as a person, you are different from me AS persons – as far as conscious mind is concerned. If you go a little deeper, we are not so different in the unconscious mind. If you go a little deeper still, we come even closer in the collective unconscious. And the mystics say there is even a little more than the collective unconscious; they call it the universal unconscious, or God. That is the very center. At that center we all meet and we all are one. All the great insights come from that center. It is only a question of who is looking in that direction – he will get the insight first. Otherwise the insight starts happening to many people; they may not be looking at it and therefore they will miss it. Theologia Mystica 4 Osho CHAPTER 1.