Panch Mahavrat or The Perennial Path The Art of Living

Author(s): Osho Rajnish
Publisher: Osho Rajnish

Page 25

CHAPTER 3. MATERIAL PROSPERITY AND NONPOSSESSIVENESS
way of liberation except by experience. This mortal world is the gate of liberation, hell is the gate of heaven, and a prison is the gate of freedom. The amount of miseries which becomes our experience in this mortal world, becomes also the road leading us beyond this world. I also said that desires are never satisfied, they are circular. You may go on running after them, there is no end. You may run as much as you like, there is always a line left in front of you. You may run still further, the line remains unfinished. Desires never end, and just as an individual runs in a circle, this circle also never ends. No desire can ever be satisfied. But on the other hand I say an individual can be free from desires only by a deep experience of desires. Both these statements appear contradictory, but they are not. The individual is not satisfied by a deep experience. If he is satisfied, there is no need for him to be free.
His not being satisfied becomes the reason which leads him to freedom. He has already run thousands of times in that circle and sees where he is and yet there is no satisfaction. Such an experience alone is the deep experience of desires. He runs much, he seeks much, he gets what he wants and yet remains empty-handed. He goes deep into this experience not once but many times, but his desire is not satisfied, on the contrary it so happens that he stops running and stands. He stands there because he says, 'l have run much on this road, I am running in a circle, I do not reach anywhere, I have reached nowhere'. Even after such a deep experience, if he thinks that if he runs a little more, perhaps he may reach his goal, then it must be understood that the experience is not so deep as to free him from the desire. But if he says, 'If I run one more round, I might get what is not yet got, then it is to be understood that his experience is not yet complete. The meaning of a total experience is not the satisfaction of a desire, but its meaning is the satisfaction of the running. Now there is no more running.
The satisfaction of a desire is not freedom from the desire. The meaning of freedom from desire is to realize complete worthlessness - uselessness - of total desires. In order to see within our own house, we shall have to stop running about. In order to see' within ourselves we shall have to drop the journey outside. In order to see Him we shall have to turn our eyes back. In order to seek that which is in our hands, we shall have to stop trying to open the closed palms of others.
The depth of experience is not the satisfaction of longing. If longings can be satisfied Mahavira was a fool. If longing can be satisfied Buddha was mad. If longings can be satisfied Jesus should be given a test of psychoanalysis. Longings can never be satisfied. Buddha has said longing are difficult to be satisfied, they can never be over. But such an experience would take one out of longings. And that which is not obtained by longing is achieved by desirelessness. The experience is total only when passions and longings have become completely worthless and when the flower of nonpossessiveness blooms.
The flower of nonpossessiveness blooms within him whose passions have fallen down, whose desires have fallen down. Then such a person docs not run he stands. Then the 'house' will not be far, it is near his legs, it is underneath his legs. Then there is nothing to achieve in the world outside. The possessor himself becomes the possessed. The seeker becomes the 'sought'. He who is seeking within, finds that he was seeking himself only. But perhaps he was seeking in mirrors. He sought in many mirrors, but could not get anything. Now he leaves mirrors off and looks within himself and realizes that I can never be achieved in mirrors, because there is only the reflection in mirrors; I was only reflected in them, there was nobody in the mirrors, it was simply delusions of one 'virtual space'. It was a delusion of a false space. When an individual stands in the state of desirelessness, nothing is left to be achieved. He has achieved everything.
The Perennial Path: The Art of Living
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Osho