The Book Of Secrets Aka Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, midway, Osho,
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Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2
The Book of the Secrets: A New Commentary
Talks given from 25/03/73 pm to 08/11/73 pm
English Discourse series
40 Chapters
Year published:
The original series of 80 discourses were simply called "Vigyan Bhairav Tantra". For publication as
books they were divided up into 5 volumes, called the "The Book of the Secrets Volume 1 - 5" (16
discourses each).
The books were later published as "Vigyan Bhairav Tantra Volumes 1 and 2",(40 discourses
each). The two volumes also come with a deck of 112 cards to represent the various meditations.
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2
Chapter #1
Chapter title: Be a witness not a judge
25 March 1973 pm in Bombay, India
Archive code: 7303255
ShortTitle: VBT201
Audio: Yes
Video: No
Length: 91 mins
AT THE START OF SNEEZING, DURING FRIGHT, IN ANXIETY, ABOVE A CHASM, FLYING IN BATTLE, IN
EXTREME CURIOSITY, AT THE BEGINNING OF HUNGER, AT THE END OF HUNGER, BE
UNINTERRUPTEDLY AWARE.
THE PURITY OF OTHER TEACHINGS IS AN IMPURITY TO US. IN REALITY, KNOW NOTHING AS PURE
OR IMPURE.
Life is a paradox. To reach near you have to travel far, and that which is already achieved you have to
achieve again. Nothing is lost. Man remains natural, man remains pure, man remains innocent; it is only that
he forgets it. The purity is not disturbed, the innocence is not destroyed. Only a deep forgetfulness is there.
That which is to be achieved you are already. In essence, nothing new is to be achieved. You have only
to discover, uncover, unfold that which is already the case; hence, both the difficulty of spiritual endeavor
and the simplicity. I say "both".... It is very simple if you can understand, but it is very difficult because you
have to understand that which you have completely forgotten, that which is so obvious that you never
become aware of it, that which is just like your breathing. It goes on continuously, uninterruptedly, but
because it goes on continuously, uninterruptedly, you need not be aware of it. Your awareness is not
needed; it is not a basic requirement. You can forget it or you can remember it: it is a choice.
SANSARA and NIRVANA, the world and the liberated state of consciousness, are not two things -- just
two attitudes, just two choices. You can choose either. You can be in the world because of a certain attitude,
and the same world becomes NIRVANA, the same world becomes absolute bliss, just by changing the
attitude. You remain the same, everything remains the same; just a change of focus, a change of emphasis, a
change of choice, is required. It is easy. Once absolute bliss is achieved, you will laugh about it. Once it is
known, you will not be able to understand why you were missing it, how you could miss it. It was there
always just waiting to be looked at, and it was yours.
A buddha laughs. Anyone who achieves it laughs because the whole thing seems to be ridiculous. You
were searching for something which was never lost. The whole effort was absurd. But this happens only
when you have achieved it, so those who have achieved it say it is very simple. But those who have not
achieved it, they say it is the most arduous thing, the most difficult -- really, not simply difficult, but the
most impossible thing.
These methods which we will be discussing are told by someone who has achieved -- remember this.
They will look too simple, and they are. To our minds things so simple cannot be appealing -- because if
techniques are so simple and the abode is so near, if you are already in it, if techniques are so simple and the
home is so near, you will look ridiculous to yourself. Then why are you missing it? Rather than feel the
ridiculousness of your own ego, you will think that such simple methods cannot help.
That is a deception. Your mind will tell you that these simple methods cannot be of any help -- that they
are so simple, they cannot achieve anything. To achieve divine existence, to achieve the absolute and the
ultimate, how can such simple methods be used? How can they be of any help? Your ego will say that they
cannot be of any help.
Remember another thing: ego is always interested in something which is difficult, because when
something is difficult there is a challenge, and if you can overcome the difficulty your ego will feel fulfilled.
The ego is never attracted towards anything which is simple -- never! If you want to give your ego a
challenge, then you have to have something difficult devised. If something is simple there is no appeal,
because even if you can conquer it there will be no fulfillment of the ego. In the first place, there was
nothing to be conquered, the thing was so simple. Ego asks for difficulties -- some hurdles to be crossed,
some peaks to be conquered. And the more difficult the peak, the more at ease your ego will feel.
Because these techniques are so simple, they will not have any appeal to your mind. Remember, that
which appeals to the ego cannot help your spiritual growth. Only that which has no appeal to your ego can
be a help towards transformation. But this is what happens: if some teacher says that this or that is very
difficult, very arduous, that only after lives and lives and lives will you have any possibility for any glimpse,
your ego will feel good.
These techniques are so simple that right now, here and now, the thing is possible. But then there is no
contact with your ego. If I say that right now, here, this very moment you can achieve all that is possible to
man, that you can become a Buddha or a Christ or a Krishna in this very moment here and now without
losing a single instant, then there will be no contact with your ego. You will say, "This is not possible. I
must go somewhere else to search for it." And these techniques are so simple that you can achieve all that is
possible to human consciousness at any moment that you decide to achieve it.
When I say that these techniques are simple, I mean many things. First, spiritual explosion is not caused
by anything; it is not a causal phenomenon. If it were caused by something, then time would be needed,
because time is necessary for the cause to take place. And if time is needed, then it cannot be the case, it
cannot happen this very moment. Then you will have to wait for tomorrow or for another life. The next
moment will be needed. If anything is causal, then the cause has to take place, and then after the cause the
effect will follow,.and you cannot produce the effect right now without the cause; time will be needed. But a
spiritual happening is not a causal phenomenon. You are already in that state; just a remembering is needed.
It is not a causal phenomenon.
It is just like this: in the morning somebody has suddenly awakened you, and you cannot recognize
where you are. For a moment you may not even recognize who you are. In a sudden awakening from deep
sleep, you may not be able to recognize the place, the time, but within a moment you will recognize. The
more alert you will become, the more you will recognize who you are, where you are and what has
happened. This is not a causal thing -- just a question of alertness. With a growing alertness, you will
recognize.
All these techniques are for a growing alertness. You are already the person you long to be, you are
already where you want to reach. You have reached your home already. You have never left it really. You
have always been there, but dreaming, asleep. You can fall asleep here and then you can dream, and in your
dream you can move anywhere; you can go to hell or to heaven or anywhere.
Have you ever observed that whenever you are in your dream, one thing is certain? -- that you are never
in the room in which you are asleep. Have you observed that fact? You can be anywhere, but you will never
be in the same room, on the same cot where you are. Because you are already there, there is no need to
dream about it. Dream means you have to trek away.
You may be sleeping in this room, but you will never dream of this room. There is no need, you are
already there. The mind desires something which is not, so the mind moves. It may go to London, to New
York, to Calcutta, to the Himalayas, to Tibet, to anywhere. It may go anywhere, but it will never be here. It
can be anywhere, but never here -- and you are here. This is the case. You are dreaming. Your divine
existence is here; you are THAT. But you have been trekking long.... And each dream creates a new
sequence of dreaming. Each dream creates new dreams, and you go on dreaming and dreaming and
dreaming.
All these techniques are just to make you alert so that you can come out of your dreams back to the
place where you have always been, to the state which you have never missed. And you cannot miss it, it is
your nature -- it is SWABHAV. It is your very being, so how can you miss it? These techniques are just to
help your alertness to grow more, to help it become more intense. With the intensity of awareness,
everything changes. The more intense the awareness, the less the possibility for dreaming; you become
more and more alert about the real. The less intense the awareness, the more you drift into dreaming. So the
whole phenomenon is that a non-alert state of mind is the world, and an alert state of mind is NIRVANA.
Non-alert, you are what you appear to be. Alert, you are what you are.
So the whole question is one of how to change your non-alert state of mind into an alert state of mind,
how to become more aware, how to get out of sleep and dreaming. That is why techniques can be of help.
Even an alarm clock can be of help -- just an artificial device, just an alarm clock. But if the alarm goes on,
it can help to bring you out of your dreaming. But you can deceive it also; you can even dream about it, and
then the whole thing is falsified. When the alarm goes, you can dream, you can make a dream around the
alarm also. You can dream that you have entered a temple and the bells are going on. Now you have
deceived the alarm. It could have broken your sleep, but you can change it into dream itself; you can make it
part of your dreaming.
If you can make it part of your dreaming, if it can be absorbed into a dreaming process, then it cannot
help you. You can dream anything, and then it will not look like an alarm. It will have become something
else. You have entered a temple and the bells are....; now there is no need to wake up. You have changed the
alarm, the real thing, into a dream, and a dream cannot be disturbed by another dream, it can only be helped.
These techniques are all artificial in a way. They are just devices to help bring you out of your dreaming
state, but you can make them also part of your dream. Then you miss the point. Then you MISS the point!
Try to understand this because this is very basic. And once understood, it will be helpful; otherwise you can
go on deceiving yourself.
For example, I say, "Take a jump into sannyas." That is just a device. Your old identity is broken; your
old name becomes as if it belongs to someone else. You can look at your past more detachedly. You can be
a witness. You are aloof, a distance is created. I give you a new name and a new robe just to create the
distance. But you can make it part of your dreaming; then you will miss the whole point. You can still think
in terms of the old -- that the old man, A, has taken sannyas. You feel, "I have taken sannyas. " "I" remain
the old. "I" have changed my robe, my name, but "I" remain the old,.and the old continues. Now this
sannyas is just something added to the old. It is not discontinuous, it is continuous. If it is continuous, if
YOU have taken sannyas, you the old one, if YOU have changed your robe and name, you have missed the
point.
You must be dead, you must not be the old now. You must feel that the old has died, that this is a new
entity which you never knew, that this is not a growth out of the old. This is discontinuous with the old.
Then the device will have helped. Then the alarm will have worked and the technique is useful. You are not
missing the point. All these techniques are such that you can miss or you can use them; it depends. But
remember well, the techniques are just techniques. If you understand the spirit, you may become alert even
without any technique.
For example, the alarm clock may not be needed. Go deeply into it. Why do you need an alarm clock? If
you want to get up early in the morning at three, why do you need an alarm clock? Deep down you know
that you can deceive yourself, and deep down you know that if you really want to get up at three, you will
get up at three and no clock is needed. But with the clock, the responsibility is put off. Now you will not be
responsible. Now if something goes wrong, the clock is responsible. You can sleep with ease now. Now the
clock is there; you can sleep without any disturbance.
But if you really want to get up early at three, you will get up early at three. No clock is needed. This
very intensity to get up will bring the happening. This will to get up at three may be so intense, you may not
be able to sleep at all, and there will be no need to get up; you will already be awake the whole night. But to
sleep well the clock is needed. Then you can go to sleep. But you can deceive. When the alarm goes off, you
can deceive; you can dream about it.
These techniques are helpful only because your intensity is low. If you are really intense, there is no
need of any technique; you can be alert. But your intensity is not such. Even with the technique you may
start dreaming, and many possibilities are there. The first possibility is that you will not believe that such
simple techniques can be of any help. This is the first thing. Then there is no contact. Secondly, you may
think that a very, very long process is needed, that it will come gradually. But there are certain things that
only happen suddenly, they never come gradually.
I am reminded that Mulla Nasruddin was asked to give his blessings to one of his neighbor's sons on his
birthday. So he said, "Son, I hope you live One hundred and twenty years plus three months." Everyone was
wondering at this "plus three months."
The son asked, "But why? It is okay -- one hundred and twenty years. Why plus three months?"
So Mulla Nasrudin said, "I would not like you to die so suddenly. Just one hundred and twenty years,
and suddenly you die? I would not like you to die so suddenly; that is why plus three months."
But even with "plus three months" you will die suddenly anyway. Whenever you are going to die, you
will die suddenly. Every death is a sudden death. No death is gradual because either you are alive or dead.
There is no gradual process. One moment you are alive and the next moment you are dead. There is no time
process.
Death is sudden; SAMADHI is also sudden. Spiritual explosion is also sudden. It is like death. It is more
like death than it is like life; it is sudden. It can happen at any moment. If you are ready, these techniques
can be of help. They will not bring it gradually; really, they will gradually bring you to be ready for the
sudden happening. Remember this distinction: they are preparing you so that the sudden SAMADHI
happens.
These techniques are not techniques for SAMADHI; they are techniques to prepare you, and then
SAMADHI happens. So how you use these techniques depends on you. So don't think that a very long
process is needed, because that may be just a trick. The mind says a very long process is needed so that you
can postpone. You can say, "Tomorrow I will do it or the day after tomorrow," and you can go on
postponing forever. A postponing mind goes on always postponing. It is not a question of whether you are
going to do it tomorrow; there is only a question because you are not going to do it today, that is all.
Tomorrow will again be a today, and the same mind will say, "Okay, I am going to do it tomorrow."
And, remember, you never postpone for years. You postpone for one day because if you postpone for
years you cannot deceive yourself. You say, "It is only a question of one day. Just today I am not doing it;
tomorrow I will do it." And the gap is so small that you never feel you are postponing it forever.
Tomorrow never comes, it is always today. And this mind which thinks in terms of tomorrow will
ALWAYS think in terms of tomorrow. And it never comes, it has never been, it will never be. All that you
have is this very moment, so don't go on postponing. Now we will enter the techniques.
The first technique:
"AT THE START OF SNEEZING, DURING FRIGHT, IN ANXIETY, ABOVE A CHASM, FLYING IN BATTLE,
IN EXTREME CURIOSITY, AT THE BEGINNING OF HUNGER, AT THE END OF HUNGER, BE
UNINTERRUPTEDLY AWARE."
It looks so simple: at the start of sneezing, during fright, in anxiety or before hunger or after hunger,
"BE UNINTERRUPTEDLY AWARE." Many things have to be understood. Very simple acts like sneezing
can be used as devices, because howsoever simple they look, they are very complex, and the inner
mechanism is a very delicate thing. Whenever you feel that a sneeze is coming become alert, and the sneeze
may not come at all. It may simply disappear, because a sneeze is a non-voluntary thing -- unconscious,
non-voluntary.
You cannot sneeze voluntarily; you cannot "will" it. How can you? How helpless man is! You cannot
"will" a single sneeze. Howsoever you may try, you cannot bring it out. A single sneeze -- such a small
thing, but you cannot will it. It is non-voluntary; volition is not needed. It does not happen because of your
mind; it is because of your total organism, your total body.
And the second thing: when you become alert, when the sneeze is coming -- you cannot bring it, but
when it is coming -- if you become alert, it may not come, because you are bringing something new to the
process: the alertness. It may disappear, but when the sneeze disappears and you are alert, there is a third
thing. First, a sneeze is non-voluntary. You bring in a new thing -- alertness. When the alertness comes, the
sneeze may not come. If really you are alert, it will not; it may not happen at all. Then a third thing happens.
The energy that was going to be released through a sneeze, where does it move? It moves to your alertness.
Suddenly there is a flash, a lightning. You become more alert. The energy, that was going to be thrown by
the sneeze moves into alertness. Suddenly you become more alert.
In that flash, in that lightning, even enlightenment is possible. That is why I say that these matters are so
simple, they look absurd. Their promise seems to be too much. Just through sneezing, how can one become
enlightened? But sneezing is not just sneezing; you are totally involved in it. Whatsoever you do or
whatsoever happens to you is a total involvement. Observe again: whenever a sneeze happens, you are
totally in it with the whole body, the whole mind. It is not just your nose in which the sneeze is happening;
every fiber, every cell of your body is involved in it. A subtle trembling, a subtle wavering goes all over the
body, and with it the whole body becomes concentrated. And when the sneeze has happened, the whole
body relaxes. But it is difficult to bring alertness to it. If you bring alertness to it, it will not happen, and if it
happens you can know that the alertness was not there. That is why you should be alert.
"AT THE START OF SNEEZING...", because if it has started, nothing can be done. The arrow has
gone; you cannot change it now. The mechanism has started. The energy is on its way to being released, it
cannot be stopped. Can you stop a sneeze in the middle? How can you stop it in the middle? By the time
you are ready, it has already happened. You cannot stop it in the middle.
Just at the beginning, become alert. The moment you feel the sensation that it is coming, become alert.
Close your eyes and be meditative. Bring your total consciousness to the focus just where you are feeling
the sensation of an oncoming sneeze. Just at the beginning, remain alert. The sneeze will disappear, and the
energy will be transformed into more alertness. And because in the sneeze the whole body is involved, the
whole mechanism is involved -- it is a release mechanism and you are alert at this moment -- there will be
no mind, there will be no thought, no meditation.
In a sneeze, thinking stops. That is why so many people like snuff. It unburdens them, their minds feel
more relaxed because for a moment thinking stops. Snuff gives them a glimpse of no-thinking. Through
snuff, when the sneeze comes, they are not minds, they become bodies. The head disappears for a single
moment, but it feels good.
If you become habituated to snuff, it is very difficult to leave it. It is more penetrating a habit than
smoking; smoking is nothing before it. It penetrates more deeply, because smoking is conscious and
sneezing is unconscious. To leave snuff is more difficult than to leave smoking. And smoking can be
changed, substitutes can be found -- but there is no substitute for snuff, because, really, sneezing is a very
unique phenomenon in the body.
The only other thing that can be compared and which has been compared is the sex act. Those who think
in terms of physiology, they say that the sex act is just sneezing through the sex organ -- and the similarity
is there. It is not one hundred percent right because much more is involved in sex, greater things are
involved in it. But in the beginning, just in the beginning, the similarity is there.
Something is thrown out from the nose and you feel relieved, and something is thrown out from the sex
organ and you feel relieved. And both are non-voluntary. You cannot move into sex with will. If you try,
you will be a failure -- particularly men, because man's sex organ has to do something. It is active. You
cannot "will" its act, and if you try, then the more you try, the more it will be impossible. It can happen, but
you cannot make it happen. Because of this, in the West sex has become a problem. This half century in the
West sex knowledge has developed, and everyone has become so conscious about it that the sex act is
becoming more and more impossible.
If you are alert, sex will be impossible. If a man is alert while making love, the more he is alert, the
more it will be difficult. He will not be able to get an erection. It cannot be willed, and if you will it you will
lose it. The same method, the same technique, can be used in sex. Just in the beginning, when you feel the
sensation of an erection just coming to you but it has not yet come, you just feel the vibration, become alert.
The vibration will be lost, and the same energy will move into alertness.
Tantra has used this. It has tried in many ways. A beautiful naked woman will be there just as an object
for meditation, and the seeker, the meditator, will sit before the nude woman meditating on her body, her
form, her proportions, just waiting for the first sensation in his sex center. The moment the sensation is
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